Mansion of Terror
by LainellaFay
Summary: Seigaku, Rikkaidai and Hyoutei goes for a training camp at one of Atobe's villas. However...what happens when mysterious events suddenly occur. One by one...they fall... Warnings: Character death. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own PoT.**

Hey there! This is my first multi-chapter story and I would really appreciate it if you would review it. Well, hope you'll enjoy it. Have fun reading?

* * *

**Chapter 1**

"Have you ever killed anyone before?"

Fuji stared at the girl with a distorted grin in front of him. He was baffled. He had just been having a normal conversation with the female, who was asking him for directions, a few seconds ago when she started acting weird and spouted out such a ridiculous question. He stumbled a few steps back.

"Um, no…"

The girl gave a maniacal laugh. "You should try it. It's fun."

She licked her lips, before continuing, stepping forwards with every two words that she said, "Guess what? There's going to be a bloodbath…" The girl stopped in mid-sentence. She grabbed her head with her hands, shaking it furiously. Fuji stared in horror, unable to react to the unexpected scene.

The girl stopped. She looked up, blushing, "What…? Um…I got to go." She stuttered and dashed off somewhere.

Fuji stared, and stared at the direction that the girl dashed off to. 'What did I just witness?' he thought.

He continued to look at the disappearing figure of the girl. Frightened, he grasped the handles of his tennis bag tightly and ran home, never stopping for a second. It must have been quite a sight. The normally calm and composed prodigy was running as if his life was at stake.

Fuji slammed the front door shut. He leaned on the back of the door and slowly slid down, ending up slumped on the floor. Fuji panted, trying to get his breath back.

"Syuusuke, what are you doing on the floor? Get up and go take a shower, dinner is ready in 10 minutes."

Fuji looked up, to see his sister glaring at him with her hands on her hips. He slowly picked himself up from the floor and made his way up the stairs and into his room. Shutting the door behind him, he switched on the lights and dumped his bag beside his table. He collapsed in his chair and thought back to the scene before.

"Bloodbath…" He muttered under his breath. What bloodbath? He shook his head furiously. It had nothing to do with him, yes, nothing to do with him. Fuji tried to convince himself to calm down and banished the dreadful feeling in his heart. He remembered his sister's words and went off to do the daily routines.

* * *

"Syuusuke, you'll be going over to Atobe's villa for the weekend right?" Fuji's sister, Yumiko asked.

Fuji swallowed the food that was in his mouth and nodded. The both of them were having dinner alone at the moment, as Yuuta was still at St. Rudolph's dormitories and their parents were on a vacation overseas.

"Do you need me to send you there?"

"Ah, no, it's fine nee-san. We'll be meeting up in school before Atobe comes to pick us up."

Yumiko nodded in understanding. "Don't forget to pack your stuff." She pushed her chair back and stood up, dishes in her hands.

Fuji followed not long after and placed the dishes in the dishwasher. He went back into his room and started to pack for the trip. A week ago, Atobe, Tezuka, and Yukimura had arranged for a tennis camp with the three schools. Realising that they needed a place for the tennis camp, Atobe offered to use one of his spare villas. Well, instead of offering like how normal people would, Atobe used the term 'Be awed by my generosity'. Therefore, Seigaku, Rikkaidai and Hyoutei would be having a training camp over the weekend at Atobe's villa, which was the reason why Fuji was packing.

Fuji had almost finished his packing when Yumiko opened the door and popped her head in.

"Need any help?" She asked.

Fuji shook his head. "I'm almost done."

Yumiko glanced around her younger brother's room and invited herself in. Plopping down onto his bed, she fidgeted uneasily. Noticing his sister's uneasiness, Fuji raised an eyebrow and asked her what was wrong.

Yumiko took a deep breath and stared at Fuji in the eye, well, at his closed eyes. "Syuusuke. I need you to listen to me."

Fuji was shocked at his sister's tone. It wasn't the same tone that she'd always used. It was the tone that she uses when she predicts that anything bad was about to happen. He opened his cerulean eyes, staring back at his sister's brown orbs, gesturing for her to continue.

"Answer me truthfully. Did you happen to meet anyone…" She paused, trying to come up with the right word. "Anyone…strange today?"

'Strange?' Fuji thought. He recalled the girl that he had met on the streets earlier that day. She was…peculiar in a way, how she changed personalities so fast. He wondered if that was what his sister was referring to and nodded uncertainly.

Yumiko gasped. She placed her right palm on her forehead and started muttering words that Fuji couldn't hear. Fuji stayed still. His sister's strange behaviour was unexpected, he didn't know how to react. It was when Yumiko had finally stopped her weird chanting that Fuji opened his mouth to question the older girl.

"Nee-san? What's wrong?"

"Syuusuke…" Yumiko stood up, staggering a little. "Just be careful tomorrow…"

She stumbled over to his bedroom door and let herself out, shutting the door tightly behind her. Back in her own room, she brushed her fingers over the cards laid out on the table. She had been doing some divinations for her family and her prediction for the cerulean eyed prodigy was a spine-chilling scene. All she could do at that moment was hope for the best…

* * *

"I'm leaving!" Fuji called out before leaving his house. Softly humming a tune, he made his way to Seigaku, where the regulars would be gathering up before Atobe arrives.

He put a foot past the school's front gates and was immediately attacked by a hyper red head.

"Fuji~" Kikumaru exclaimed, throwing himself onto the prodigy.

"Morning Eiji."

Fuji detached Kikumaru off his body and greeted the Seigaku vice-captain, who had just appeared behind them.

"Eiji! I told you not to jump on people like that! You'll give them a heart attack!" Oishi nagged. It was Oishi's nature to act like a worried mother hen over the Seigaku regulars.

"Ehh~? It's fine isn't it? I do that to O'chibi all the time!" Kikumaru jumped up and down on the spot. "And he's fine isn't he? No problem!" Kikumaru made a peace sign with his hand, nearly sticking it into Oishi's eyes.

Oishi whacked the red head's hand away and exclaimed, "EIJI! My eyes could have been poked out just now!"

Kikumaru sheepishly grinned, "Oops. My bad. Sorry Oishi."

The trio made their way over to the tennis courts, where Tezuka, Inui, Kawamura and Kaidoh were already waiting at. The only people missing at the moment were Momoshiro and Echizen, both with the tendency of being late.

Tezuka greeted the trio with a slight nod, eyes flashing around hoping to catch sight of the two missing regulars. Realising that they were not going to appear within the next minute, Tezuka frowned. Atobe would be here in 10 minutes and two of their regulars were still not assembled! They've let their guards down!

"Probability that Momo and Echizen will arrive just when Atobe comes is 94.67%." Inui commented, not looking up from his green notebook.

Just like Inui had predicted, Momoshiro and Echizen showed up on Momoshiro's bicycle the moment Atobe's bus pulled up at the front gates. Through the windows of the bus, the Seigaku regulars could spot the Hyoutei regulars sitting comfortably and smirking at the two that were late. The bus doors swung open and Atobe climbed down the stairs.

"The camp has not even started yet and two of you are already late. How unsightly." Atobe crinkled his nose and gestured to the Seigaku regulars to board the bus. "Come on my magnificent vehicle now. We still have to pick up the Rikkaidai members in Kanagawa, and that's not anywhere near here."

Atobe snapped his fingers and Kabaji jumped out from nowhere, grabbing the Seigaku regulars' stuff and dumping them somewhere in the compartments of the bus. Kikumaru and Momoshiro stared at the gigantic second year in awe, they had not expected someone to get their bags for them. Surely, the way that Atobe lived his life was totally different from how normal people would…

They all boarded the bus and the bus left, moving off to pick up the Rikkaidai members.

* * *

Meanwhile, back in the shadows of the school ground, a lone figure stood staring at the leaving bus. She grinned evilly, oh, how her plan would work finely…

* * *

The bus ride was quiet. Fuji felt a chill down his spine. Blinking a few times, he simply shrugged it off and looked out of the window at the scenery.

The bus skidded to a stop when they arrived outside Rikkaidai Fuzoku. All the 8 regulars from Rikkaidai were already lined up at the front of the school and they orderly boarded the bus, after listening to Atobe's speech about how marvelous he was. Sanada stomped past Atobe and nearly scowled. He disliked the narcissist Hyoutei captain. They just simply couldn't get along. It didn't help that he had to endure his teammates' troublemaking syndromes as well as the narcissist comments from Atobe. Sanada was definitely going to need lots of aspirin on the trip.

As they've picked up all the people going on the training camp, the bus made its way to Atobe's villa. Sitting at the back of the bus were Niou, Marui and Kirihara. Three troublemakers sitting together? On a bus? Oh, what a disaster.

Sanada quickly realized his mistake of allowing the three to freely choose their seats, however, he was already too late. Marui was comfortably sitting while chomping on a strawberry cake, Niou was resting his head on the sugar lover's shoulder, probably thinking of nice and interesting pranks to do during the ride, and Kirihara was…well…taunting the other players. Sanada was about to get up from his seat to separate the three but was stopped by Yukimura who placed a hand on his shoulder, shaking his head. If Yukimura was telling him not to get involved, he wouldn't. Sanada would never go against Yukimura's words after all. Thus, he sat back down, pulling his cap down, hiding his eyes. He could only wish that they wouldn't do anything drastic like blowing up the bus…

* * *

The ride wasn't as horrible as Sanada had thought. All they had managed to do was stick Marui's gum in the other teams hair, sing like idiots and annoying everyone else on the bus, and releasing bugs (bees, beetles, spiders) that Niou mysteriously has in his bags. Yup, nothing drastic. At least they didn't create some bomb and blasting them all off the universe.

What they did receive was hatred from the other teams. Sanada could clearly see steam coming out of Shishido's, Momoshiro's and Kaidoh's ears. They were the ones that were affected the most, as they provided the troublemakers with the best reactions, making them provoke them more.

'Tarundoru.' Sanada thought. '150 laps when we reach our destination! How dare they bring Rikkai's name down like that.'

"Alright, we're here! Everyone off the bus now!" Atobe announced. The middle schoolers all turned to look out of the windows, gasping when they saw the building in front of them. They were so shocked that they were not able to move, well, except for the Hyoutei members as they were used to it. Atobe practically had to get the Hyoutei members to kick the Seigaku and Rikkaidai regulars off the bus, earning glares from both schools, which quickly went back to staring at the building wide-eyed.

"That…that…that's a VILLA?" They exclaimed in sync. Atobe had told them that they would be staying at one of his spare villas. However, the building in front of them was nothing less than a castle. The only word to describe it was: extravagant.

"Ahn~? What about it?" Atobe asked, unable to comprehend why they were shell-shocked. It was simply a tiny villa.

"THIS IS A FREAKING MANSION!" Kirihara screamed.

Atobe waved his hand. "Yeah, yeah, who cares. It's just a small villa. Follow me." He strutted over to the wide doors of the building. The door opened and revealed a huge row of maids and butlers bowing down before Atobe, greeting him with, "Welcome Keigo-sama."

Atobe snapped his fingers in the air and said, "Be awed by my presence!"

"No one's really awed at all…" Kirihara muttered under his breath. Niou snickered beside him. Echizen had overheard the second year ace of Rikkaidai and pulled his cap down, hiding his grin.

Atobe then instructed the staff to escort the guests to their rooms. They all scattered, following their respective maids or butlers to their assigned rooms.

Kaidoh and Momoshiro had unfortunately, for them, been assigned rooms beside each other. Both rivals glared at each other fiercely before opening the doors and stomped into their own rooms.

* * *

In a certain room, a girl was smiling and whistling while she wiped a revolver that was in her hand. She had been so happily sitting there when she heard the room door burst open. Shocked, she glanced around frantically and found a wardrobe to hide in. She had chosen to use that particular room as she had thought that it would not be occupied.

She cursed under her breath. It was a miscalculation on her part. Guess things would have to go out of plans for now. She checked her revolver and made sure that it was loaded. Cracking open the wardrobe door, she peeked out through the gap and saw a scary-looking male wearing a green bandana walk in. Her eyes followed his every movement. At the moment when he turned his back towards the wardrobe, she charged out and cocked the end of the revolver at his head, finger resting on the trigger. She smirked. Checkmate.

* * *

Kaidoh sensed danger. All of his senses were screaming it. His body tensed up and he slowly rotated his head. His eyes widened with fear when he saw the tip of a revolver aimed right in front of his face. His body started to shake, he struggled to open his mouth to speak when…

_BANG!_


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own PoT**

* * *

**Chapter 2**

_BANG!_

Momoshiro immediately dropped whatever he was holding. He had been in the process of unpacking when he heard that loud noise coming from the room next door.

'Mamushi's room.' Momoshiro thought. Concerned, yes, he was concerned. They might be rivals and hated each others guts, but that didn't mean that he couldn't be concerned for his fellow teammate. Momoshiro walked out of his own room and over to Kaidoh's room. He knocked on the door a few times. Momoshiro waited for a few seconds, before letting himself in.

"What the hell was with that noise, Mamu-" Momoshiro stopped. In front of him stood a girl, dressed in a white tank top and short black shorts. The white tank top had splatters of red on it. In her hand was a revolver. Over at her feet was Momoshiro's rival. Momoshiro could see blood coming out of the viper's head. He resisted the urge to puke. The smell of blood was strong, so strong. He then realized the situation that he was in.

She twisted her head to look over at the dunk smash player. She growled, before raising the revolver again, this time, pointing it at Momoshiro.

Her plans were foiled. Completely foiled. She had intended on killing the people closest to her beloved, but it had already failed before anything had even started. First it was a stupid guy with a bandana. Now, a tall and build male with spiky black hair was in her way. They were from the same school as her beloved. She knew. Of course she knew. She watched them all the time.

She watched the spiky haired guy stumble a few steps back, arms clumsily trying to grasp onto something. She made sure that she kept her gun pointed at the boy. She kicked the bandana guy out of her way and slowly marched up to the frightened boy. She had to get rid of him fast. She knew that the others would be coming up any second now from hearing the first gunshot. She licked her lips and decided to put the shaking second year out of his misery, no matter how fun it was to see him squirm, she didn't have to time. She pulled the trigger and _BANG!_ Another gunshot rang through the mansion.

Pulling out two pieces of paper out of her short's pocket, she placed them down beside the bodies and rushed over to the window. She could hear footsteps running outside the door. It was time for her to leave, she couldn't get caught here, not now. She opened the window and jumped out, landing in the bushes below and scampered away skillfully, out of sight in a split second.

* * *

Kikumaru was the first to reach Kaidoh's room. He had used his acrobatic skills to skillfully jump up the stairs, beating Hyoutei's Mukahi in their race. Both acrobats had this strange rivalry and always competed with each other whenever they had the chance.

"Hoi hoi! Wha-" Kikumaru stopped. "AHHHHH!" He screamed his lungs out, falling backwards and kicked his legs, desperately trying to move as far away as possible from the scene in front of him.

"The hell? Stop screaming wimp." Mukahi had finally caught up to Kikumaru. Kikumaru lifted up a shaky finger and pointed. Mukahi glanced in the direction of Kikumaru's finger and froze. The other regulars came dashing into the scene and wondered why the two acrobats were in such a strange position in front of the door. It was only until they saw the two bodies in the room that they understood why.

Many of them gasped. Yukimura quickly shielded Kirihara's eyes from the scene and the second year protested, wondering why he was not allowed to see. Inui dropped his pen and notebook. Fuji had wanted to do the same thing as Yukimura to their team's first year, however, it was already too late. Echizen was staring at the scene speechless. Marui dropped the gum that he was chewing on. Oshitari tugged on his doubles partner's arm, pulling him to the back, trying to calm him down. Oishi did the same to Kikumaru, except that Oishi kept glancing back to Tezuka, hoping for an explanation of some kind. Tezuka, Sanada, and Atobe stared grimly at the scene. They didn't react at all, not even a small gasp.

It was a gruesome scene. Two bodies, both had taken a bullet to the head. Blood flowed out of the wounds, staining the expensive carpet. They could see Momoshiro's terrorized expression.

"Momo." Fuji took a small step forwards. "Kaidoh…" His cerulean eyes, which were normally hidden under closed lids, were wide. He was about to go even further forwards when Tezuka's arm stopped him. He whipped his head around to glare at the stoic captain for stopping him. Tezuka's mouth was in a grim line.

Atobe was the first to step into the crime scene. It was his villa after all. He slowly walked past Momoshiro's body, carefully avoiding the fresh blood flowing down the boy's head.

"Hm?" He stopped, staring down at the two pieces of paper that was on the ground. "What is this?"

He carefully picked them up, handing one over to Sanada and the other to Tezuka. The Seigaku regulars peered over Tezuka's shoulders while the Rikkaidai regulars, except for Yukimura and Kirihara, peered over Sanada's shoulders. Yukimura had brought the younger boy back to his own room, not wanting their baby to witness the horrifying scene. The Hyoutei regulars, except for Jirou, who had slept through the whole ordeal, waited patiently for the other two teams to read the words scribbled on the pieces of paper out loud.

Tezuka's eyebrow twitched when he read the one that he was holding.

"That…doesn't make any sense." Kawamura commented. Tezuka glanced over to Sanada and showed him the slip of paper. Sanada inspected both pieces of paper, before realising that they linked. The one that he was holding was the start, while the one that Tezuka held was the continuation of it.

"My beloved, I've made some offerings for our bright future together." Sanada read out what was on the first piece of paper. He gestured towards Tezuka to continue.

"How do you like it? Ah…more will come…more will come…" Tezuka read.

"What…does…that mean?" Mukahi whimpered out. He was still trembling in fear.

"It probably means that more murders will occur." Inui explained, pushing his glasses up with his fingers.

All of them gasped. Ootori clung onto Shishido's arm, steadying himself. Atobe twitched his eyebrow. He growled.

"Who dares to pollute ore-sama's property with such foul murders?!"

"THAT'S NOT THE ISSUE ATOBE!" Shishido yelled at his captain. "The main problem is that there is a MURDERER out there somewhere!"

"Yeah…and they are out there to kill us." Hiyoshi commented.

"I say we call the police." Yagyuu suggested.

"Hn." Tezuka took out his mobile phone from his pocket and looked at the screen. "There's no signal."

"Huh? That's impossible!" Atobe stood in front of the Seigaku captain. "Ore-sama has made sure that every single corner of this villa has signal."

"Check for yourself."

Atobe took out his own mobile phone and took a look at it. He twitched his eyebrow. Tezuka was right. There was no signal. Atobe took out two more mobile phones from his pocket and checked those two as well.

"How many phones do you have?!" Marui exclaimed, popping another piece of gum back into his mouth.

"It's Atobe…he probably has way more than that." Oshitari drawled in his Kansai accent.

"Strange. All of my phones really don't have any signal." Atobe remarked. Tezuka looked at Atobe with the best 'I-told-you-so' face he could master.

"Don't you have some landlines? They might work." Yanagi suggested. Atobe nodded, ordering Kabaji to go and bring one of the phones that they had in the mansion.

"Hey…have you wondered why none of the servants are here?" Niou muttered. The rest of them looked around. It really was strange. Two gunshots rang throughout the mansion, alerting all of the regulars, yet none of the servants rushed to the scene.

Atobe frowned. His servants were slacking. Kabaji arrived back with a telephone in his hands, only to be ordered by Atobe to find the servants, and leaving again. Before Kabaji left, Atobe had grabbed the telephone off the silent second year and started placed the receiver to his ear. He had expected to hear the usual _beep_ from the phone but all he heard was silence. Silence. Atobe stared at the phone.

"It's not working." He finally said.

"Someone must have cut off the phone line." Yanagi said. Inui nodded, before adding, "Probability of that is 100%."

"So what do we do now?" Sanada asked.

"Um, guys…can we move away from here now?" Kikumaru asked quietly. "The smell of blood and the bodies are scaring me."

The rest realized how stupid they were to just stand outside the crime scene and decided to go to the living room to discuss the issue further. On their way to the living room, Atobe ordered the Hyoutei regulars to drag Jirou out of his room and Sanada went to tell Yukimura and Kirihara that they were moving to the living room. Fuji stuck to the end of the group. He recalled his sister's strange behaviour as well as the girl's behaviour the day before.

Bloodbath. She had definitely mentioned bloodbath. Fuji wondered whether this was what she'd meant. If it was… Fuji shook his head. 'No, it can't be that much of a coincidence. I don't think any of us even know that girl. Why would she suddenly attack us?'

The boys sat in different sections in the living room, each team staying with each other. Seigaku felt the missing presence of their two second years and they looked like they had been hit by a giant wave of depression. Well, they would, who wouldn't?

"Huh…? Why am I here? What's everyone doing here?" Jirou asked groggily. He then noticed a familiar red head in the Rikkaidai section and started to squeal like a typical fan boy.

"Marui-kun! It's Marui-kun! AWESOME!" He yelled, jumping up and rushing over to where his idol was sitting. Marui looked petrified and Niou shielded his classmate, glaring coldly at the suddenly energized sleeping beauty of Hyoutei.

"JIROU!" Atobe commanded. Jirou froze, turned to look at his captain who was giving him a stern glare and dejectedly dragged his feet back to where his team was. It was not the time to deal with Jirou's fan boy syndromes. They had to deal with a much more important matter.

"Where's Kabaji?" Atobe impatiently tapped his fingers against the arm rest of his luxurious couch. As if hearing the older boy, Kabaji suddenly appeared at the doorway, alone. Atobe frowned. He had definitely ordered the bigger boy to find the servants, yet, why did he return here alone?

"Where are the servants Kabaji?" Atobe scowled. Kabaji stared blankly at Atobe. He opened his mouth and closed it quickly, repeating the motion like a goldfish. A vein popped on Sanada's forehead.

"Atobe! What's the problem?" He ordered.

The purple haired diva looked daggers at the cap wearing male. He then chose to ignore Sanada and commanded Kabaji to tell him what was wrong instead of standing there like an idiotic goldfish.

"The…servants are…dead…" Kabaji finally said. Silence filled the room.

"WHAT?" Kirihara yelled, jumping up from his seat. "DEAD?" He had no idea of the situation that they were in as Yukimura had dragged him away from the earlier scene without letting him even get a glimpse of it.

Kabaji replied with his normal saying, "Usu."

Tezuka's frowned again. He was going to get wrinkles if he continued to frown so much. Atobe was flabbergasted. His servants. Dead. In his villa. What was this nightmare? The rest gave up on even gasping. They had already seen 2 dead bodies. In addition, there was the warning that more would come.

"Where are they Kabaji-kun?" Yukimura asked. Kabaji turned, gesturing for them to follow him. He was about to move when Atobe's voice rang out.

"Wait. Ore-sama, Yukimura and Tezuka will go. Everyone else stay here."

The three captains nodded at each other, even their teammates agreed. It was logical for the captains to be the ones to go. The three captains then followed Kabaji over to where the dead bodies of the servants would be. When they arrived outside the servants lounge, Kabaji pushed open the wide doors and revealed yet another gruesome scene. This time, as there were over a dozen servants, the stench of blood was overpowering and all four of them had to cover their noses in an attempt to lessen the smell. Bodies were piling on top of each other, all covered in blood. Blood splatters could be seen on the walls, carpet and even the ceiling. The chandelier that used to be sparkly and shining was broken and the glass from it covered the floor. The windows were open, swinging back and forth when the wind blew. They could see bullet holes in the windows as well as in the walls all around the room.

"Argh…"

The four of them heard the voice and immediately scanned the area. They spotted a slight movement at the corner of the room and rushed over, jumping over bodies, not caring whether they stained their tennis jerseys with the blood that was all over the room.

Atobe snapped his fingers and Kabaji lifted up a few bodies, dumping them over to a side. Underneath the pile of bodies was a young male. Judging from the clothes that he was wearing, he was one of the butlers. Yukimura rushed over to the young male's side, cradled his head and started to look for any injuries the boy may have.

The butler's eyes fluttered open and he blinked a few times, gazing blankly at the four.

"Are you okay? Is there anything that hurts? What happened here?" Yukimura asked, rapidly questioning the boy.

"Yukimura. Let him speak." Tezuka said, folding his arms and looked at the butler.

"Ah…um, I'm fine. I don't think I've received any injuries…" He mumbled.

"You're covered in blood though. Are you really sure you're fine?" Yukimura urged.

"Eh? I am?" The butler looked down at his own clothes and noticed that it was indeed stained maroon. "Um, it might not be my blood…I don't feel hurt or anything. Well…only my head…but I think it's just a tiny bump."

Atobe groaned. This was ridiculous. All but one of his servants were dead, and it was a young boy whom he didn't even know!

"Who are you?" He barked out. The boy noticed the purple haired diva's presence and his eyes widened. He quickly pushed himself off the floor and bowed.

"I'm sorry Keigo-sama."

Atobe rubbed his temple with his fingers. "Who are you." He demanded.

"Ah, um, I'm Taki Watano, I just started serving you a few days ago."

A newbie. Atobe scoffed. How much worse could his life get? He was just about to command the boy to follow them back to the living room where all the others were when a piece of paper fluttered in through the open window. Tezuka raised an eyebrow and walked over to pick it up. Like the first two pieces of paper, it was filled with scribbles. His mind processed the whole thing and he rushed over to the balcony, leaned over and started to search the area.

"Tezuka, what ARE you doing?" Atobe asked, frustrated.

Not seeing even a glimpse or a shadow of a person, Tezuka moved back into the room and gave the piece of paper to Atobe.

"It's the same piece of paper as the ones we found beside Momoshiro and Kaidoh." Tezuka explained.

"What pieces of paper?" Yukimura asked, as he had not been present when they discovered the notes and read them out loud.

Atobe quickly read the note and gave a serious look to Yukimura and Tezuka. "Let's go back now. This is serious."

They nodded and walked back to the living room, Kabaji was making sure that the young servant did not venture away from their side.

* * *

The doors burst open and all of the remaining tennis regulars spun around to see their captains, Kabaji, and a blood covered butler walk in.

"Atobe!"

"Tezuka/Buchou!"

"Yukimura/Buchou!"

Each of the schools exclaimed. The only one who didn't was Jirou as he had fallen asleep again. Marui being in the same room as him didn't manage to keep him awake as a certain trickster kept him from going close to the sugar loving red head.

Atobe silenced them with a snap of his fingers and said, "The servants really were dead. This guy over here," he pointed at Taki and continued, "was the only one alive. Also, we've found a note."

A note. Kikumaru squeezed his eyes shut as he recalled the other two notes. He whimpered and clung onto Oishi's arm.

"What does it say?" Fuji asked.

"I was just getting to that." Atobe snapped. He cleared his throat and started to recite, "I'm sorry. They were getting kind of annoying, walking around the mansion like that. I had to get rid of them." He folded the piece of paper and gave it to Tezuka.

"You kept the other two notes didn't you?" Tezuka nodded and took the folded note, placing it into one of his pockets.

"I suggest none of you go into the servant's lounge. It's not a sight that you want to see." Yukimura said, making sure to make eye contact with the three troublemakers on his team.

"What the hell is going on here?! Why are people dying?!" Shishido yelled out, slamming his fist down on the coffee table. "Shishido-san!" Ootori tried to calm down his senior.

"We don't know…" Atobe said.

"Actually, there might be something…" Fuji started.

"What is it?" Tezuka urged the prodigy to continue.

"Yesterday, I met this strange girl and she asked me this weird question." He paused, making eye contact with everyone in the room. "She asked me whether I've ever killed anyone before."

Kikumaru gasped, rushing over to his friend and said, "Of course not! Fuji will never kill anyone!"

Fuji smiled at Seigaku's acrobat and said, "I told her that I didn't, of course. And then she said something really bizarre. She told me that I should try it. That it was fun." He stopped for dramatic effect. "Then, she said that there was going to be a bloodbath soon."

The word 'bloodbath' sent shivers down the tennis players' spines. Indeed. The murders occurring in this very mansion was similar to a bloodbath. In fact, worse than a bloodbath. It was a bloodbath WITH bodies.

"Do…do you know who she is?" Someone gulped. Fuji shook his head.

"No, unfortunately, I don't."

"Hm…that's strange indeed. Something like that cannot simply be a coincidence." Yukimura muttered, rubbing his chin with his fingers.

"That's not all…"

"Hm?" Yukimura questioned.

"My sister was acting strangely as well. She told me to be careful today."

"Eh? Doesn't your sister read tarot cards?" Oishi asked.

"Yeah."

"Why did she ask you to be careful though?" Echizen wondered.

"Don't tell me…she saw something?" Kikumaru exclaimed.

"That might be the case…" Fuji gave it a few thoughts.

"Can it be trusted though? Data does not agree with using such methods of prediction." Yanagi said.

"Nee-san is very accurate in her readings, it even scares me sometimes."

"Isn't that bad then?" Kirihara wailed, clinging onto Marui's arm. Sanada had explained the whole situation in detail to the second year while the captains were away, investigating.

"Akaya! Get off, you're heavy!" Marui yelled, shaking the second year off.

"So…do you think that that has anything to do with our situation right now?" Inui asked.

"I'm not sure…" Fuji admitted. They groaned. Now they knew that Fuji's sister had predicted something horrible, yet, they still didn't know who was after them. They only knew that there was a psychopathic murderer out there trying to kill them.

"By the way, why is he the only survivor of the servant massacre?" Yagyuu pointed out.

"Ah!" Yagyuu was right. Why didn't anyone think about how strange it was that a young servant managed to escape death without even a scratch?

Atobe pointed a finger at Taki. "Speak." He commanded.

Taki looked fearfully at everyone in the room. They were all eyeing him like a predator hunting its prey.

"Um…I…was in the servants lounge together with the other servants. We were all gathered at the lounge because we had received an order from actually, you, Keigo-sama, to gather there." Taki turned to look at Atobe, who was giving him a strange look.

"Ahn~? Ore-sama didn't order anyone to go anywhere, except for escorting the guests to their respective rooms."

Taki looked shocked. "But…but…we heard you…"

"Ore-sama didn't say anything and that's final!"

"Who can mimic Atobe's voice here?" Oshitari wondered out loud. After he had said that single statement, everyone turned to stare at Niou. Niou realized that everyone was looking at him and stared back.

"What?" The trickster asked.

Yagyuu pushed his glasses up with two fingers. "Niou-kun. I hope that it wasn't you who had impersonated Atobe-kun and ordered the servants to gather up in the servants lounge."

"WHAT?" Niou protested. "What the hell Yagyuu. It wasn't me dammit. I was with Bunta all the time. We were following this maid to our rooms and he came over to mine after the maid left us."

Niou turned to look at the red head. Marui nodded, agreeing with Niou's argument. "Yeah, 'Haru's telling the truth. I went over as his room was just beside mine and we were chatting until we heard the gunshot and ran out."

"That rules Niou out then." Inui commented, rapidly scribbling data down onto his green notebook, muttering words about how Marui and Niou were so close to each other.

"No one else here can copy Atobe's voice. It either has to be Atobe himself or someone that we don't know." Yanagi said. He then started a whispered conversation with his childhood friend, Inui, and they compared data with each other.

Atobe twitched. "Ore-sama already said that it wasn't him. Ore-sama knows whether he has ordered anyone to do something or not. So when ore-sama says that it wasn't him. IT WASN'T HIM!"

"Dude, chill. We know it wasn't you." Niou said, tired of hearing Atobe and his consistent 'Ore-sama'.

"Anyways, continue please." Tezuka told the butler who was unsure of what to do while the tennis players were arguing with each other.

"Ah…um. Well, after listening to the command, all of us, of course, went to the servants lounge and waited for Keigo-sama." He paused. "We waited for a while…I don't know…maybe 10 minutes or so? When suddenly, the window glass broke with a _smash._ I didn't know what was going on. I could hear people screaming. I was standing at the corner of the room and some of the older servants suddenly pounced on me. I think I knocked my head pretty hard when I fell, cause the next thing I knew, Keigo-sama and three of you," He pointed towards Tezuka, Yukimura and Kabaji, "were in front of me."

"Argh…he's no help then. He has no memories of what happened." Mukahi said, throwing his hands up in the air. "Great, just great. We're all doing to die here. In Atobe's stupid villa."

"Gakuto, don't say that." Oshitari chided. It was already a dark time for them, and it wouldn't do any good to lower their morales even further.

"It's Monkey King's mansion. Not a villa." Echizen pointed out. Atobe's 'villa' really didn't look like a normal 'villa' at all.

"Details. Details." Mukahi shrugged.

"You little brat. Ore-sama has a beautiful name, not some hideous name like 'Monkey King'!"

Echizen smirked, angering the diva even further.

"So, according to your story, there is a high possibility that the servants were murdered by rapid gunfire from outside the window." Inui started his explanation.

"And you're safe because of the older servants that used their bodies and shielded you from the gunfire." Yanagi finished.

"That's the most likely scenario…" Atobe agreed.

"Hn." Tezuka nodded. "The room was full of bullet holes."

"Yeah, don't forget the windows. I saw multiple bullet holes there." Yukimura added.

"So…what do we do now?" Hiyoshi asked.

"Seeing that our killer probably has deadly weapons, such as machines guns. The best thing to do would be to go home." Jackal suggested.

"Hm…I agree." Yagyuu stated.

"Usu."

"The problem is. The bus has already left the premises and scheduled to come back to pick us up on Monday morning. Ore-sama can't call them to pick us up now because of the lack of signal."

Groans erupted from the group. They'd wanted to leave this place as soon as they could. How could anyone bear to stay at a place where more than a dozen people were already killed.

"Um…what are we going to do with Momo-senpai's and Kaidoh-senpai's bodies?" Echizen suddenly piped up.

Blank faces turned to look at the cocky first year. They had not thought about that.

"Really, what are we going to do about them? We can't just leave them there. It's too cruel." Echizen persisted.

"Yes…it might be cruel…but it's a crime scene. I think it's best if we leave it alone…" Oishi finally replied. He fought back tears that threatened to fall as he remembered his two underclassmen. They were so young…

"Yeah, anyway. How are we going to leave this place? The bus won't be coming, and we're miles away from the nearest town." Shishido said.

"We can send someone to go outside and check if they can get any signal out there. If they can, then they can call for help." Oshitari suggested.

"That's a good idea. But, sending one person may be too risky. There's a murderer out there. Let's send two." Atobe said. He then looked at the tennis players and many of them shifted their gaze away, refusing to make eye contact with the diva. None of them wanted to go out into the open where they would be easy targets for the murderer.

Kawamura, being the nice guy that he was, decided to volunteer. "Um…I'll go…"

Fuji gasped. "No Taka-san! It's too dangerous!"

Kawamura tried to reassure Fuji with a smile. "It'll be fine, I'll definitely get help for you guys."

"But…"

"So Kawamura will be one person. We would need one more." Atobe continued. The tennis players started nudging each other in the ribs. Ootori just stood there frightened. He couldn't believe that his teammates would send others into a tiger's den. He was about to volunteer himself when Marui piped up.

"I volunteer…" Niou glared at the red head, and Kirihara whimpered. "Jackal said."

Hearing his name, Jackal jumped and faced his doubles partner. "What? ME?"

Marui blew a bubble from his gum and nodded. Jackal opened his mouth to protest but was cut off by Atobe who announced, "Okay, so Kawamura and Jackal will go."

Jackal started to protest and Ootori had a strong urge to go up and exchange with the unwilling Brazilian but was stopped by Shishido who had grabbed him by the arm. He was about to speak when he noticed the third year's eyes, staring at him, yelling "NO!"

"Jackal. Think of this as training. Going out there into the battle field would enhance your senses. Your wall of defence would come in handy." Sanada tried to persuade the Brazilian.

"But!"

"Jackal, you'll be fine. Trust me." Yukimura gave him a wide smile. Yanagi suddenly appeared by the Rikkaidai captain's side and nodded.

"Probability that Jackal will make it back safely is 84.3%."

That was a comforting percentage. Finally feeling assured, Jackal and Kawamura slowly made their way out of the front doors. They said their goodbyes to their team, just in case, and left. The rest of the team stayed, watching the backs of the two courageous men.

"We're depending on you, Jackal, Kawamura." Sanada muttered.

* * *

"Two of them are leaving. Over." A voice cracked through a hand-held transceiver. The girl was crouching down on a large branch on one of the trees surrounding the mansion.

She picked up another hand-held transceiver from her bag that was hanging on the tree branch and spoke into it. "Two boys are going over your way. Prevent them from leaving the premises. Best to kill them. Over."

"Roger. Over."

The girl stared grimly into the distance. More miscalculations in her plan. She plucked out two more pieces of paper and started scribbling on them. She stood up, balancing on the thick branch. Jumping from tree to tree like a ninja, she moved in the direction to where the two boys were heading.

* * *

**Read and Review please? :D Hope that you've enjoyed reading.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own PoT**

Thank you for the reviews! I really really appreciate it. -big smile-

Well here you go~

* * *

**Chapter 3**

They had only been walking for about 5 minutes. However, to the two of them, it felt like millions of years. They made sure to be cautious, scanning their surroundings once in a while for potential murderers.

Jackal looked back, the mansion looked smaller from the distance, but still much bigger than any normal house.

"Do you think that we're far enough?" He asked Kawamura.

"Um, we could be." Kawamura shyly replied. Both of them didn't know each other well and Kawamura's shy nature got to him. He fumbled a little as he pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket. Clicking on a few buttons, he checked.

"Ah…no, still no signal." He told the Brazilian, placing his phone back into his pocket.

Jackal frowned. "Ah, keep your phone in your hand. We'll keep an eye on it as we walk."

Kawamura nodded and took his phone out again, holding it in his palm. Jackal did the same with his own. They continued walking down the path. After about another 100 metres, they arrived at a fountain, with large trees around the pathway.

Just then, they heard a rustle. Immediately, Jackal got into a defensive position. He heard a _thump_ and a groan.

"Kawamura?" He frantically asked, whipping around to look for the brown haired boy. There. On the ground, Kawamura laid face down, unmoving. Jackal's eyes widened. Kawamura had just been murdered!

He turned around in circles, desperately trying to find the attacker.

'Where are they?' He thought, beads of sweat formed on his forehead. 'Dammit, where are they?!'

He couldn't see a single soul. The area was eerily quiet and the air was still. A bit too quiet for his liking.

"Caw…" Jackal quickly faced the direction of the noise, arms ready to fight. He relaxed slightly when he realized that it was just a crow. Relaxing was a horrible idea. It gave the attacker the chance to attack.

Jackal felt a whack on the back of his neck. He stumbled a few steps forwards, before regaining his balance and spinning around. In front of him stood a male dressed fully in black. Jackal couldn't see the male's face as the hood that the male was wearing shielded his face. In the male's hand was a pocket knife.

'Crap crap crap. I'm screwed. Damn guy has a knife!' Jackal panicked. The attacker charged forwards, darting towards the bald Brazilian.

'He's fast!' was the first thing that came into Jackal's mind. He barely managed to dodge the male's attack. Swinging a fist, Jackal's fist made contact with fabric. He thought that he'd managed to hit the guy, however, he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his arm. He looked down and screamed in pain. The attacker was holding his arm in a firm grasp, twisting it.

'Shit! My arm! It's going to break!' Jackal thought. He was about to kick the attacker in the place where guys don't want to be hit at, but was too late. Flashing directly in front of his eyes was a glint that appeared on the sharp edge of the pocket knife. Within a split second, Jackal slumped onto the ground, his life slowly leaving his body…

* * *

"Tch." The black cladded male clicked his tongue. "Guy can pack a punch." He pushed his hood back and rubbed his cheek, which was turning reddish in colour.

"Are you sure it's not because you were careless?" The girl narrowed her eyes at the male.

The male rolled his eyes and dashed off, scampering up the tree trunk, disappearing under the leaves from the dense trees.

The girl placed two more pieces of paper beside the bodies. One for each body. 'This would stop them from trying to leave.' She thought. It wouldn't do any good for her if any of her prey managed to escape. She then fished out a Polaroid camera and snapped a quick picture. She smiled cruelly as she waited for the picture to print. Inspecting it quickly, she tucked it into her pocket and walked away with springs in her steps, whistling a joyful tune.

* * *

Back in the villa (mansion), the remaining tennis players were sprawled out around the living room, where they were waiting for news from the two that they had sent out. Most of them had their heads hung down, especially the Seigaku regulars. Many of them also clutched their fists together, keeping them from trembling as they feared for their lives. The weaker hearted already had tears running down their faces as they sobbed quietly. Jirou….well…he was just there. Sleeping.

Taki Watano, the servant that they found in the massacre, stood hidden in the shadows, unsure of what to do in that situation. He kept switching legs to put his weight on as he glanced anxiously at his employee, Atobe Keigo. Just then, a loud growl rang through the room. Heads whipped around to find the source of the noise. It was only until Kabaji pointed a finger at the sleeping Jirou's stomach that they realized what it was. The growl sounded again. It was only Jirou's stomach growling due to hunger. They sighed in relief. They had thought that it was something appearing to kill them all.

Tezuka looked at the clock hanging on the wall from the corner of his eye. Indeed, it was way past the time for lunch. Then, he suddenly realized that he himself felt hungry. Famished. They probably had not realized that they were hungry earlier as fear overtook all of their senses. The growling continued. How Jirou still managed to sleep with a growling stomach amazed everyone.

Atobe placed his hand on his forehead. "Certainly…it's time to eat. We're all famished."

The problem was the food. Who was going to cook since all of the chefs were already lying dead, and cold, in the servant's lounge?

"You!" Atobe commanded, pointing at Taki. Taki immediately got into a military attention stance.

"Ye..yes?" he stammered.

"Do you know how to cook?"

Taki darted his eyes around. "Um, um, ye...yes…I do."

"Good." Atobe folded his arms across his chest. "Well? What are you waiting for? Go and cook some food for all of us!" He narrowed his eyes at the frightened butler.

"But…but…I've never…." Taki gulped. "Cooked for…this many…people before." He then lowered his head, looking down at his shoes.

Atobe resisted a groan. Seriously. What did he expect from a newbie?

"Anyone else here knows how to cook?" He asked, turning to the tennis players. All of them exchanged glances and shook their heads.

"Kawamura-senpai knows how to cook…" Echizen said, shrugging as if it would help.

Atobe twitched his eyebrow. "Brat. Kawamura is outside. Don't say things that won't help."

Echizen rolled his eyes, ignoring the diva.

"Marui-senpai knows how to bake…" Kirihara piped up.

"Bake?"

Marui nodded, blowing another bubble from his gum, before popping it. "I specialize in baking cakes, and any other tasty sweets. Aren't I a genius?"

"Baking and cooking is completely different, idiot." Niou commented, whacking the red head in the head. Marui narrowed his eyes at the trickster and rubbed his head, not without sticking out his tongue childishly at Niou.

"You're just jealous that you don't even know how to make any kind of food." Marui muttered under his breath, obviously not silently enough as the trickster managed to catch it.

"Why you…"

"ENOUGH! Now's not the time to fight." Sanada bellowed.

"Marui, you'll go with Taki to the kitchen. At least you have experience in the kitchen compared to the rest of us." Atobe paused, seeming to be deep in thought. "Kabaji. Follow them as well."

"Kabaji?" Many questions aroused when they heard the diva call Kabaji to follow.

"Why Kabaji? He can't cook…" Mukahi asked.

"Atobe is probably asking Kabaji to use his 'Absorbing Skills' skill to absorb the cooking skill from Taki." Inui explained. Yanagi nodded, agreeing with his childhood friend.

"Probability of that is 100%." Rikkai's Master added.

"Er…yeah…right…that was totally ore-sama's plan…" Atobe slowly declared. He absolutely did not even think about that, but, it wasn't as if he was going to admit that he had not thought of such a brilliant idea.

Sounds of amazement chorused through the room.

"But…will that skill work in cooking as well?" Kikumaru asked.

The two data masters coughed. "You dare to question our data?" They both said in sync.

Kikumaru retreated, hiding behind his doubles partner. "Nya…they're scary…" He whined out.

Another growl echoed through the room.

"Well, what are you guys waiting for? Go and cook already!" Atobe commanded. Marui rolled his eyes as he followed the butler out of the living room. He definitely did not want to take orders from the Hyoutei captain but his own hunger forced him to follow. The three left the room and silence once again filled the living room. Well, except for the constant growls from Jirou's stomach. Seriously, that guy can sleep.

* * *

"Lunch's ready." Taki announced, standing at the entrance to the living room. Even though there were three people in the kitchen preparing, Taki ended up being the only one who proved himself useful. Marui was too busy looking for deserts to devour and Kabaji stood like a statue, staring at Taki as he prepared, scaring the young butler. Apparently, tennis skills can't be used in daily lives…

"Everyone, off to the dining room!" Atobe snapped his fingers and gestured to everyone to follow him, strutting off down the extravagantly decorated hallways. The Hyoutei regulars ended up having to drag Jirou down the hallways again…as he was STILL fast asleep.

Taki pushed the doors to the dining room open and the tennis players saw a wide spread of luxurious food on the enormous table. The dining table was long, like the ones you would see in castles, or well…very rich peoples' homes. Marui and Kabaji were already comfortably settled on their chairs. Kabaji sitting still, staring into blank space, while Marui had his plate piled high with various dishes (mainly deserts).

"Marui-senpai! Not fair! You got to eat first!" Kirihara exclaimed, running off to his upperclassman's side.

Atobe grimaced. What uncivilized people, daring to start a meal without him. He snapped his fingers again. However, this time, no one paid attention to the diva, as hunger took over all their minds and they all dashed forwards to grab as much food as they could. Well…the still rather sane ones just followed their teammates to try to keep them out of trouble. Jirou was surprising awake. It was probably the wonderful aroma of the dishes that woke him up.

Atobe stood at the entrance of the dining hall, appalled.

"Atobe, what are you doing standing there? Come and eat already." Oshitari drawled. Atobe closed his eyes, as he tried to calm himself.

"Wah! Yummy!"

Atobe reached the table and joined his fellow teammates, who were stuffing themselves like pigs. He eyed the food and clicked his tongue with a "Tch!"

Echizen, who happened to be sitting beside the diva heard him and swallowed his food before saying, "Oi, Monkey King, don't complain about your meal. You'll never know, this might even be your last meal."

The chattering immediately stopped. All of them turned to look at the first year who had uttered such a statement. The atmosphere changed drastically from a festive one to a somber one.

"Echizen. Don't say that." Oishi finally chided, after a few moments of silence.

Echizen looked indifferent, and continued eating.

"Ye…yeah, O'chibi… It's not funny nya."

Suddenly, laughter erupted from the other side of the table. Kirihara was laughing like he had gone mad.

"Hahahahaha!" He stopped. "That brat's right. We'll all die anyways. At least enjoy our damn meal." His eyes suddenly turned bloodshot.

"Akaya." Sanada sternly said. Yukimura patted their second year, with hopes of bringing him out of his bloodshot mode. No one even knew why he went into that mode.

Metal clanged against porcelain. Ootori had placed his fork down onto the plate and was looking down.

"I wonder how Kawamura-san and Kuwahara-san are doing…they've been gone for a while now…" He softly said.

Fuji frowned. Ootori was right. They'd been gone for a bit too long. All they had to do was to walk outside and try to get some help.

"They're probably lost somewhere. You all know how ridiculously large Atobe's mansion is." Shishido said, trying to be positive. He placed a hand on his doubles partner's shoulder and squeezed it.

"Y…yeah. I guess you're right, Shishido-san." Ootori replied.

"Saa…let's just continue eating shall we?" Fuji asked, changing the topic. They all nodded and went back to digging into the mouthwatering meal.

"Hm?" Kabaji looked out of the window. There was a glint coming from one of the trees outside of the window. He squinted his eyes. His eyes widened when he realized what it was. Quickly, he pushed back his chair, and rushed over to where his captain was.

_CRASH!_

* * *

**A/N: Please read and review~ **

**Also, please let me know if any of the characters are OOC. I'm trying to keep them in character but it's pretty hard for the characters who rarely have any screen time. **

**You know...the scary part about this story is that even I don't know what's going to happen next. The story is controlling me! -cough- This is so irrelevant. I'm going to stop now. **

**I'm already writing up the next chapter. So it should be up soon. See you then!  
**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I do not own PoT**

Yay! I present to you chapter 4!

Again, thank you for all the lovely reviews! Oh, yes, I will definitely try to get the story back into my control. Naughty story better listen to me! Thanks for letting me know about its danger.

So...hope you'll enjoy reading this!

* * *

**Chapter 4**

Glass shattered, spraying all about the room. The tennis players, plus the young butler, all ducked, screaming. The only one who didn't duck was Kabaji as he dashed over towards Atobe and flung his body in front of the purple haired diva.

It took them a few moments before regaining their composure.

Atobe's eyes widened.

'No. No. No. This can't be. No.' Was the thought that ran through his mind.

Lying down in front of him was his childhood friend. The one who was always with him through thick and thin. The one that always listened to whatever he commanded. The one he depended on the most.

"KABAJI!" He yelled, uncharacteristically.

He rushed forwards, holding the younger boy's head, pressing his palm down on the wound, desperately trying to stop it from bleeding so profusely. Atobe wished for the time to stop. He wished for something, anything, that would come and save his friend. However, as we all know, wishes don't always come true. Atobe saw the luster in Kabaji's eyes slowly become duller and duller.

"Atobe…" Oshitari whispered, watching his normally strong and composed captain frantically trying to do anything to save their underclassman.

No one could do anything. All they could do was watch the purple haired diva on the ground. They could see tears run down the diva's cheeks, as he cried. This was the first time that they'd saw someone die right in front of them. Tears welled up in all of their eyes, yes, even the strongest of them started to weep.

Atobe cried into Kabaji's chest, clutching the younger boy's Hyoutei jersey tightly in his hands.

* * *

An eye could be seen through the lenses of the mini-telescope, that was resting on top of a sniping rifle.

"Tch. Missed." The girl had intended on killing off the owner of the mansion as it might be troublesome if he managed to realize that he had some sort of secret passageway of escape somewhere in that enormous mansion.

A hand dug through the pockets of the black shorts. Writing another note, she placed it at the tip of the arrowhead and released it from the bow.

* * *

_Whoosh._

An arrow flew in through the broken window. It landed right beside the wailing diva. He slowly lifted his head up. He narrowed his eyes at the arrow. Stuck onto it, was another piece of paper. Another note from the killer.

His eyes flashed with anger, and deep sadness. With a shaky hand, he pulled the arrow out of the carpet, releasing the note from its hold. Atobe tried to read it out loud, but his mouth was too dry. He ended up passing it to Tezuka, who was leaning over to try to comfort Atobe, to read.

Tezuka pushed his glasses up with his fingers. He first read through the note. Tezuka's eyes slightly widened, before quickly going back into it's original size. The only people who had noticed were Fuji and Inui.

He cleared his throat, before letting out a creepy laugh. "Hehehehheheheeeee!"

Shivers ran down the regulars' backs.

"Why is Tezuka laughing?" Kirihara cried out.

"Tezuka-buchou's gone nuts!" Kikumaru shrieked, using his hands to cover his face.

"Heh. So even buchou can laugh." Echizen smirked. That was so not the time to think about that!

Hearing those comments, Tezuka stopped. He glared at the three and continued to read the note. He then pointed towards the note to indicate that his laughed because the note said so.

"You got lucky, Atobe Keigo. I was aiming for you. But alas, your friend prevented that from happening. Heh. Oh well. It was only a matter of time till I got to him anyways. Ah, my beloved! Why. Why do you look so frightened? Don't worry, I'll meet you soon. Soon…just wait for me…"

Tezuka closed his eyes, folding the note, and letting his hands fall down to his side.

"Why is ore-sama being targeted?!" Atobe demanded, rising up from the floor. He was fuming with anger. Everyone looked away from the diva. The two data masters felt ashamed, as they had absolutely no data on that matter.

"Who is this 'beloved' the notes keep talking about?" Hiyoshi asked. They all exchanged glances.

"Well…it has to be one of us… Only we would look frightened in this situation, at this very moment…right?" He urged.

"Sorry Hiyoshi, but we really don't have any idea who that person is." Oshitari placed a hand on the second year's shoulder.

"But he has a point." Yagyuu commented.

_Whoosh._

Another arrow flew in, this time grazing Marui's cheek as it passed by him and stuck onto the wall right behind where the red head was standing.

"Ow." He muttered, rubbing the wound. No one else had noticed the arrow fly in, as they were all too distracted by the message on the note.

Marui gave the arrow a little tug, pulling it out. There was something on the arrow. Marui turned it over and took a look at it. His eyes widened and his fingers started to tremble.

'No. No. No. NO!' He screamed in his mind. Dropping both the arrow and the object that caused his actions, he ran as fast as he could out of the dining room.

Kirihara noticed his upperclassman's strange behaviour and shouted after the red head, "Marui-senpai!"

The Rikkai regulars whipped around to see a flash of red by the door, disappearing in a split second.

Niou swore under his breath. Then, from the corner of his eye, he spotted something lying on the floor, right where his red headed friend was standing at less than a minute ago. Picking it up, he took a look and swore again, this time, loudly and catching the attention of all the tennis players.

"Niou-kun…" Yagyuu started, intending on reminding their resident trickster about his language.

Niou ignored the gentleman and crumpled the dreaded object in his hands.

"Damn idiot is going to get himself killed!" He yelled, dashing off after Marui.

"WHAT?!" Sanada bellowed after the trickster. He sworn that he had heard the word 'killed' from the silver head. Concerned for his two troublemaking teammates, he rushed off as well. The rest of the Rikkai regulars ended up following them, dashing off cluelessly, leaving the other two schools behind.

The remaining Hyoutei and Seigaku regulars could only stare at the disappearing Rikkaidai figures. First it was the death of the Hyoutei regular, Kabaji. Now this. They were stumped. What other bizarre event is going to happen now?

Tezuka realized that something horrible must have happened for the Rikkai regulars to run off like that. He quickly commanded the rest to follow as he himself ran off to find the middle schoolers who were cladded in their yellow jerseys. Atobe took one long look at Kabaji's body before following. Taki stood in the middle of the room, hand reaching out as he tried to comprehend the situation. He had absolutely no idea what to do. To stay, or to follow. He looked at the door, then looked back to Kabaji's body, before looking back to the door again. Gulping, he chose the door and ran off after the rest of the middle schoolers.

* * *

"One's running my way." There was a pause. The hand-held transceiver crackled again. "No. I see more coming. What should I do? Over."

"Don't move. Stay there. Over."

The girl was perched comfortably on the thick branch. Munching on some chips, she started to form another plan…

* * *

Marui ran. He didn't know where he was going to, but he ran. He kept running forwards. Jackal and Kawamura may have had gone in a different direction but he didn't care. He only thought of running forwards. He didn't care that he could feel his energy rapidly slipping away. He didn't care that his legs felt like they were on fire, groaning for him to stop. All he wanted to do, was to reach the two, to catch up with the two.

He could hear his teammates, namely Niou, yelling out his name and swearing at him from behind him. But he didn't care about it either.

Marui approached a fountain. He skidded to a stop. Why?

Because, lying down in front of him were two bodies. Marui's hands crept up to his face as he screamed in terror.

"JACKAL!" He hysterically yelled. Then he slid down onto the floor, in a kneeling position. His body shook as he started to cry.

Niou finally caught up to the red head. "THE HELL IDIOT! ARE YOU TRYING TO K-" Niou stopped in mid-sentence when he examined the scene. Kawamura was lying facedown, with a pool of blood under his body, staining his prided Seigaku jacket. Beside him, laid Rikkai's defence specialist that they were so proud of. Unlike Kawamura, Jackal was lying down on his back, his face out in the open for all to see. There was a line of blood on his neck, indicating that someone had sliced the Brazilian's neck, killing him.

"SHIT!" Niou swiftly knelt down in front of the hysterically crying boy and pulled him into a hug, dropping the object that he had crumpled up into a ball onto the ground. Marui gripped Niou's jacket with his hands and he cried into the silver haired boy's chest.

They heard a gasp when the rest of their teammates arrived. Yukimura had his palm over his mouth as he stepped back from the scene. Sanada tugged his cap down and hid his expression. Yanagi, Yagyuu and Kirihara were just staring speechless. Yanagi because his data had gone wrong, and Kirihara because one of his upperclassmen, the one who had always treated him to sweets (well, Marui and Kirihara kind of forced Jackal into paying for them), was lying unmoving in front of them. Yagyuu picked up the object that he'd found lying beside Niou and Marui and uncrumpled it.

"Yukimura-kun. You might want to see this." He said, passing the object to his captain.

Yukimura looked at the object and his eyes widened. "How…cruel…" He managed to croak out. It was a photo. Not just any photo, but a photo clearly depicting the scene in front of them.

"It's all my fault. It's all my fault. I'm sorry, Jackal. I'm so sorry…" Marui suddenly started mumbling, his crying had ceased. Niou cursed.

"Shut up idiot! It's not your fault!" He tried to snap the red head back to his senses. But Marui didn't seem to hear Niou at all. It didn't even seem like he was in the same world as the rest of them were. Niou grabbed the red head's shoulders and shook him, yelling at him.

"Dammit Bunta! Listen to me! LISTEN TO ME GODDAMMIT!"

Marui's eyes were blankly staring at nothing. His eyes were unfocused. It was like he couldn't even see Niou at all. He kept mumbling about how it was all his fault that Jackal had died, like it was some kind of chant.

They heard more footsteps approaching them as the Hyoutei and Seigaku regulars finally arrived at the scene.

"TAKA-SAN!/KAWAMURA-SENPAI!" They heard yells. The Seigaku regulars rushed over to Kawamura's side. They flipped him over onto his back and saw Kawamura's horrified expression etched on his face. They also knew that it was hopeless, another one of their regulars was dead.

The Hyoutei regulars, plus Taki, just looked away from the bodies. The Rikkaidai regulars crowded around Marui, who seemed possessed. Niou was still desperately trying to bring the red head back to his senses. Marui was affected the most by Jackal's death as he was the one who had volunteered the Brazilian to go on this death trip. Marui kept thinking 'What if?' What if he hadn't said that? What if he was the one who had gone instead? What if…what if...

"Marui. Marui. MARUI!" Sanada roared. When the red head didn't answer him and continued with his chanting, Sanada quickly backhanded him. That finally brought Marui back to his senses. He fell forwards into Niou's arms and placed a hand on his cheek, eyes wide and trembling.

"It's…my…fault…" Marui muttered, squeezing his eyes shut, and started to softly cry.

"Marui-kun…it's not your fault. It's all of ours." Yagyuu said. He then dragged their second year ace into a hug. Kirihara was trembling as he watched his upperclassmen. He had never seen Marui acting like that before. Marui was always the bubbly and energetic upperclassman to him. It scared him to see his bubbly upperclassman become hysterical after seeing the body of their teammate.

"Yes Marui…I'm at fault too." Yukimura said, resting his eyes on the Brazilian's body.

"That's true, Bunta. It's my fault as well. I convinced him to go by giving him incorrect data. I'm ashamed…" Yanagi admitted.

Sanada didn't admit to anything. However, he knew that he was also at fault. He was the one who had tried to persuade Jackal into going, even though the Brazilian was obviously unwilling to go.

Hearing his teammates words, Marui slowly calmed down. Niou patted the red head's head. Marui had used up all of his energy running and crying. After calming down, he drifted off into a deep sleep, resting his head against Niou's shoulder.

"Niou. Bring him back to his room." Yukimura instructed.

Niou slowly rose up to his feet, making sure not to wake the red head.

"No, wait, it's not safe. Yagyuu, bring Akaya back with them." Sanada sternly said.

The two third years nodded at their vice-captain and made their way back to the mansion, with a sleeping red head and second year in tow.

The 3 Demons of Rikkaidai stayed behind with the other tennis players. The Seigaku regulars were still gathered around Kawamura, all of them, even Tezuka, were sobbing.

Sanada placed his hand on Jackal's bald head and whispered, "Jackal…you did well."

Yukimura then closed the Brazilian's eyes, which were staring blankly at the sky, and said his farewells.

The three of them made silent prayers, to send their precious teammate off…

* * *

They finally managed to drag the distraught Seigaku regulars off Kawamura's body and they made their way back to Atobe's mansion. Tezuka made sure to pick up the two notes that were placed beside the two bodies. The trip back was silent, except for the occasional sniffing from Kikumaru.

As they entered the large doors, they felt differently about the mansion. When they first arrived, the only thought in their minds were about how grand it was. However, now, it only felt like a death trap. The aura of death filled the whole place as they shivered.

They walked back to the living room, the only place where they felt safe, where they found Yagyuu sitting on one of the couches.

"Yagyuu, where's Niou and Akaya?" Yukimura asked.

"Niou-kun and Akaya-kun are in Marui-kun's room. They refuse to leave Marui-kun alone." Yagyuu replied.

"Is Marui alright?" Yukimura asked again.

Yagyuu nodded. "Yes, he's just sleeping."

The 3 Demons of Rikkaidai let out a sigh of relief.

"Guys, I found two more notes." Tezuka announced, taking off his glasses and wiping his eyes.

"What?!" Shishido cried out.

"Hm…it seems to be a pattern. Every time there is a murder, the murderer always leaves a note behind." Inui said, his pen flying over the pages of his green notebook.

"It might give us some clues." Yanagi said, frowning a little.

"Tezuka, what does it say?" Fuji asked.

"Do not even attempt to leave the premises. This is your warning…" Tezuka read out one of the notes. He folded it and placed it in his back pocket. He then moved on to the next note.

"You little boys should stay further away from my beloved. I'll be coming again at midnight. Be prepared…be very prepared…"

"Mid…night?" Ootori croaked out. He was frightened. All of them were. It was another warning, that another murder was going to take place.

"Seems like they are intending on keeping us cooped up in here." Oshitari said. "To make matters worse, Atobe's villa is miles away from the nearest town. It's impossible for us to get out of here."

They sighed. Why, oh why, did they have to pick such a secluded area for their training camp? Surrounding the mansion were forests that spread for thousands of kilometres.

"Yuushi! Why are they doing this? What is their intention?" Mukahi jumped on his doubles partner.

"Gakuto…we've already said that we don't know…" Oshitari explained, detaching himself from the Hyoutei acrobat.

"We do know that whoever it is, is a freaking psychopath." Yukimura sneered. The Rikkaidai regulars nearly jumped out of their skin. They had never seen their normally smiling sweetly captain react like that before. Yukimura dumped the photo on the coffee table. "Look at what they gave us."

Each of them took a quick look at the photo, each of them groaning after viewing it. Kikumaru even started weeping again.

"Someone's going to die again at midnight." Hiyoshi indifferently commented.

Everyone flinched. Death. Death. Death. That word seemed to revolve around their lives now. Their intention to go to Atobe's mansion was for a training camp. How did such an innocent little intent change to become an unexpected deadly horror?

"Hiyoshi! Damn you! Don't say it like you don't care! Kabaji just DIED right in front of our eyes!" Shishido angrily screamed.

"Everyone. Calm down." Tezuka tried to reason.

"Calm down?" Atobe was shaking. "You're telling ore-sama to calm down?!" He whipped his head around to stare coldly at Seigaku's captain. "Kabaji was just killed! Do you think that I would not be angry? Not to mention, three of YOUR precious regulars have died as well!"

Tezuka flinched. It wasn't as if he didn't care about the deaths of his three teammates. In fact, he did, very much. But he had to stay strong for his teammates, for his crumbling team, he was the pillar of Seigaku after all. However, this wasn't the time to be angry. They had to calm down or they would not be able to think of what to do next.

"Tezuka's right. We have to calm down. We need to form a plan to stop the killer in his/her killing spree." Sanada agreed with Seigaku's stoic captain.

"Plan? Hahahahaha!" Atobe laughed maniacally. "We don't even know what kind of weapons that freaking psychopath has. What the hell can we, middle schoolers, do?!"

Everyone frowned at that. It was true after all. They were only middle schoolers, not counting the young butler as they had no idea how old he was, what were they going to do against weapons like guns?

"Atobe, listen to them. They have a point." Oshitari tried to persuade his captain.

Atobe composed himself and reluctantly went silent, plopping down onto one of the couches.

Tezuka cleared his throat and started their meeting. "Well, we know that someone…" he glanced at everyone in the room, "will be…gone…at midnight."

"Can we believe it though? What if it's just fooling us?" Oishi asked.

"It might happen." Oshitari said.

"However, what else can we do but to trust it? One can never be too careful." Yagyuu commented. Everyone nodded in agreement.

"What can we do to prevent that from happening?" Fuji wondered out loud.

"We can stay in groups?" Ootori suggested.

"Mm…that would be the most logical thing to do, however, we must not forget. Kabaji died while in our presence. Even large groups are not safe." Inui said, recalling the earlier event.

"But we can say that it is definitely safer than being alone." Yukimura said.

"Alright. So, let's just stick together all the time. Also, if you plan on going anywhere, make sure that you're at least in pairs." Tezuka declared, ending the meeting there and then.

"Yagyuu, Yanagi, go and see if you can get Marui, Niou and Akaya out of the room." Yukimura instructed. The two nodded at their captain and left.

Silence filled the room.

"So…" Echizen broke the silence. "What are we going to do until midnight?"

* * *

**A/N: Read and review please~ I get really motivated when I read your reviews.**

**Truthfully, I think I nearly cried writing this chapter. Am I just simply easily emotional?  
**

**Hm...I wonder if I got their reactions right. I don't know how people would react to dead bodies...  
**

**Oh! I'm REALLY SORRY about doing that to Kabaji! (And to all the others that I've killed off) It just had to happen for the story to flow! Kabaji would definitely do anything to save Atobe, wouldn't he?  
**

**Ah! So...what ARE they going to do until midnight lol. In this situation...I really wonder... -cheeky grin- **

**Wait and find out!  
**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I do not own PoT. I only own my OCs.**

Thanks for the reviews~! I read reviews with this gigantic smile on my face. Anyone walking past would think I'm mad xD

Okay, it definitely wasn't easy thinking of what they were going to do while waiting. So, I came up with this. Hopefully, it's believable...

* * *

**Chapter 5**

"So…" Echizen broke the silence. "What are we going to do until midnight?"

"Um…" All of them exchanged blank looks.

"Ne, let's play some tennis." Echizen decided.

They all stared at him, thinking, 'Tennis?'

"Is tennis all you think about?" Shishido asked.

"Echizen." Fuji placed a hand on the first year's shoulder. "This isn't really the time to think about playing tennis."

"Yeah." Nods of agreement spread across the room.

Echizen tilted his head to look up at the smiling prodigy. "Fuji-senpai…but you're still smiling."

"Hm?" Fuji tilted his head in confusion. "Ah, aren't I always like this? Don't change the topic Echizen." His smile turned dangerous.

"Tch." The cocky first year tugged his cap down. "Why can't we play tennis? That is what we came here for didn't we?"

"Echizen." Tezuka sternly said, however, it did not have any effect on the first year.

"Are you all just scared? I beat you all in tennis." Echizen continued.

"Why you…!" Sanada roared.

"Sanada." Yukimura stopped his vice-captain with a single word.

"Echizen. You're scared too aren't you?" Fuji asked. The younger boy opened his mouth to protest, but was cut off by his upperclassman.

"You're speaking more than normal."

Echizen simmered down and gave a pout. Indeed, he was scared, but, he did not want to admit it. He shrugged Fuji's hand off his shoulder and slid over to a corner. He crouched down and hid his face with his legs.

"O'chibi…" Kikumaru muttered, rushing over to his underclassman and started to pat his head. They heard tiny sobs coming from the first year. Echizen was crying.

"Momo-senpai…Kaidoh-senpai…Kawamura-senpai…" He choked out. Hearing this, Kikumaru remembered his three teammates again and started to cry as well.

The Seigaku regulars huddled over to their crying teammates and tried to comfort them.

The doors burst open and all of the individuals in the room whipped their heads around to look at the newcomers. They relaxed when they realized that it was just the Rikkaidai regulars.

Yagyuu was the first to enter, walking up straight and tall like a proper gentleman. He was followed by a slouching Niou, hands shoved into his pockets. Then came in Kirihara with red eyes, not the devil mode eyes, but red eyes that were signs indicating that the second year had been crying. Lastly, Yanagi entered with Marui draped over his shoulders, apparently still fast asleep. Yanagi gently placed the red head down onto one of the empty sofas.

"Marui-kun?" Jirou started. Atobe narrowed his eyes at the Hyoutei player and Jirou retreated back, hanging his head down in shame.

"Don't worry about Atobe, this is just not the right time to disturb Marui." Oshitari explained Atobe's behaviour to the Hyoutei player.

Yukimura went over to sit by Marui's head and started to gently pat the red head's head. Kirihara sat on the other side of his captain and leaned on Yukimura's shoulders, longing for attention from his captain. Marui stirred a little and started to mumble some indistinct words, but stayed soundly asleep.

The room was filled with silence again. Each of them started to ponder over Echizen's question. Midnight wouldn't arrive until hours later, and they had nothing to do. No matter the situation that they were in, they couldn't just sit around for hours, right?

"Atobe…do you have anything that can…" Yanagi looked at everyone in the eye, "get our minds off…our current…circumstances?"

This made everyone raise their eyebrows. Well, those that could anyways. Of course, excluding Marui, who was sleeping, Kikumaru and Echizen, who were crying.

"Ahn~?" Atobe tilted his head. "Ore-sama has everything you can ask for. Do you even need to ask?"

"Everything my ass. You can't even find some way to get us out of this hellhole." Niou muttered under his breath.

Sanada glared at the trickster, but secretly agreed with him. If the diva did have everything, all of them would be out of this mansion already, and would have been able to save the lives of the poor souls that courageously ventured out into the wild for their sake.

"Renji, why did you say that?" Inui asked the other data player.

"Sadaharu. Don't you think that doing other activities would help us with this gloomy aura that is falling all over Atobe's mansion?"

Inui raised his pen in the air, his mouth forming and 'o' shape, indicating that he had understood what the Rikkai master meant. He then started to scribble in his notebook again.

"Yanagi. What do you want?" Atobe rudely asked.

Yanagi looked at everyone in the room, mentally doing some calculations. He then figured that since they were all only middle schoolers, some video games would be the most logical answer.

"Do you happen to have any video games?"

"Ore-sama already told you that he had everything. Does ore-sama need to repeat everything that he has said?"

"Atobe, just get it already." Sanada was getting frustrated at how Atobe was wasting time talking about his wealth.

Atobe rolled his eyes before snapping his fingers in the air. "Kaba-"

Atobe stopped in mid-word. He squeezed his eyes shut. 'That's right. Kabaji isn't here anymore.' He reminded himself.

"Atobe…" Ootori whispered. 'Atobe misses Kabaji… We all do…' He thought.

Pushing back tears that were threatening to fall, Atobe reopened his eyes and said, "Taki! Go and bring all of the video games from the Recreation room over here."

"Wait." Oshitari stopped the young butler from leaving.

"Oshitari, what is it?" Atobe asked, curious as to why his teammate had stopped the butler from following his order.

"Wouldn't it be easier if we all went to the Recreation room? I'm sure you have other games there as well." Oshitari explained.

Atobe tried to conjure an image of the Recreation room in his mind. He nodded a few times.

"Ah. You're right." Snapping his fingers again, Atobe commanded, "Everyone, follow me!"

The Hyoutei and Seigaku regulars had no complaints with moving. Echizen and Kikumaru had already pulled themselves together with the help of their teammates. The Rikkaidai regulars were annoyed that they had to keep moving as they had just entered the living room. It also wasn't easy to carry their volley specialist around everywhere. They would wake him up, but they didn't have the heart to do so, they weren't that mean. Marui was the closest to Jackal out of all of them, he needed time to calm down after learning about the Brazilian's death.

* * *

The three teams, plus a young butler, trudged down the gaudy hallways over to the Recreation room. None of them had the mood to play at all. They just followed, because, well, it would be more interesting than staying in the living room with dark clouds hanging over all of their heads.

They passed by multiple doors, which hid unknown rooms behind each of them. All of the doors looked similar to each other. They finally stopped outside one of the doors. It had to be the Recreation room.

Taki opened the door, and true enough, it revealed a room full of various games. There were billiard tables, mini-soccer tables and ping-pong tables on the right side, an arcade that put popular arcades in towns to shame in the back, and a large TV screen with more couches opposite it on the left.

Normally, the tennis players would drool at the site of such a paradise, race each other in, and start screaming/squealing about the glorious games that they could play, but all of them really weren't in the mood. Not even a single "Ooh!" was uttered. They simply walked in uninterested, in Marui's case, carried in.

It was surprising really, that Jirou had not fallen asleep since they had lunch. No one questioned it though. They just thought that he would sleep again sooner or later. No one thought about how he felt about Kabaji's death. Kabaji was always the one that came and woke him up (Atobe's orders), the one that carried him over to their destination when he didn't wake up. Kabaji was also the listener of their team. While the rest of the Hyoutei team were rowdy and always ready to argue with each other, Kabaji was the silent one, whom Jirou would speak to whenever he had problems. No one thought that Jirou, the boy who could sleep through anything, would have problems. However, Jirou was human too. Like all humans, he had his own problems. He just didn't display it as evidently for all to see. Kabaji was the one who sat with him as he ranted out his problems to the second year. So, why was Jirou awake again? No one bothered. They were all too busy thinking about their own problems.

They slumped down onto the sofas. Niou leaned back so that his head was facing the ceiling and just stared.

"What did we come here for again?"

"Relieving our minds." Yanagi replied.

"My mind feels sooo relieved right now." Niou sarcastically drawled.

"It might if you actually try playing some of the games here."

Niou rolled his eyes and pulled his head forwards, turning to look at the purple haired diva.

"Got any darts?"

Atobe pointed to the door. Niou turned to look. It was just a door. The same door that they entered.

"Right. I can totally see darts right there." Niou rolled his eyes again.

Atobe sighed, gesturing towards the young butler to close the door. True enough, on the back of the door, was a darts board, with a few darts stuck onto it.

"Cool." Niou muttered, grunting as he lifted himself off the sofa and lazily strolled over to where the darts were.

"Well…we might as well do something while we're here…" Oishi slowly said.

One by one, the tennis players shrugged and got off from their seats, wandering around the large Recreation room, searching for things to do. Marui was left alone on the large and comfy sofa. Niou made sure to keep an eye on the red head while playing his game of darts.

Sounds from the arcade machines started up as the tennis players started to play. Others went over to the billiards table, some to the mini-soccer and ping-pong. At first, their movements were sluggish, like they were unwilling to play. It took them a solid hour before they actually got into the zone.

One by one, they threw out all of their worries and concentrated solely on what they were doing at that very moment, in that very room. Shouts of rejoice when they won a game and groans in frustration when they lost slowly filled the room.

"Yukimura. What is this?" Sanada asked in confusion, seeming lost in this advanced world.

Yukimura laughed and started to drag his vice-captain around the room, teaching him about the 'ways of a gamer'.

Yanagi and Inui drifted off to the sidelines, speaking in hush tones about…well, more data. They might also be discussing about ways to get out of the mansion, but, their conversation is pretty much boring.

A loud laughter boomed from the back of the room. It was Kirihara. "HAHA! I beat you mushroom head! SUCK IT!"

Kirihara and Hiyoshi were playing a fighting game and well, judging from that shout, Kirihara won. It was pretty close though. Kirihara won by activating his devil mode. No idea how he used it in a game, but that led him to victory.

"Rematch! Gekokujou…" Hiyoshi muttered, readying himself for a rematch with the laughing Rikkai ace.

Kirihara licked his lips and looked at Hiyoshi dangerously. "I'll still crush you."

Mukahi, Echizen and Jirou were not far away from them. Echizen was playing, unsurprisingly, virtual tennis. Jirou and Mukahi were playing Dance Dance Revolution.

"Oishi~ Let's go nya!"

"Okay, Eiji!" The Golden pair fist bumped each other. They were playing a match of ping-pong against Hyoutei's Shishido and Ootori pair.

"Tch. Choutarou, let's show them who's better!"

"Hai, Shishido-san!"

Near them were Fuji, Oshitari, Yagyuu, Tezuka and Atobe. The five were gathered around one of the billiards table and playing a game of billiards. Fuji was in the lead. It wasn't unexpected, as he probably had the most experience in billiards out of all of them. Atobe was furious that he, the King, was losing. Tezuka and Yagyuu were simply expressionless. Oshitari was leaning against the table, grinning and enjoying how his captain was raging against someone who was ignoring him like the diva was air.

'Fuji has skills…' Oshitari thought. Not many people could ignore the diva without giving in before they went mad.

Marui stirred on the couch. The noise level in the room was getting too loud, waking the red head up. He rubbed his eyes and sat up slowly, softly whispering, "Haru…?"

The whisper was so soft, that even Niou's normally keen hearing couldn't pick it up.

"Haru, where are you?" Marui asked again, this time, with a tint of desperation in his tone.

Niou quickly chucked the remaining darts that were in his hand at the dart board and rushed over to where his teammate was.

"Yeah, I'm right here Bunta. I'm right here."

Marui looked around noticed that he was in an unfamiliar area. "Where are we?" He racked his memories and try to remember what happened before his had fallen asleep. The last thing he remembered was discovering Jackal's body and crying.

Jackal. Thinking about his doubles partner, tears started to form again in Marui's eyes. Jackal was probably cursing him up there, cursing him for causing his death.

"Bunta, are you okay?" Marui heard Niou's concerned voice. Marui nodded, wiping away his tears before they fell.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He weakly replied. He didn't want his teammates to worry about him.

Judging from Niou's expression, he wasn't convinced, but he left it anyways. Marui shifted in his seat and got into a comfier position. Niou positioned himself besides the red head and leaned back, sinking into the wide sofa.

"You know." Niou started.

'Crud.' Niou thought. He had considered trying to lift Marui's spirits up, but he was horrible at prep talks. Prep talks were Yukimura's job. Niou thought hard about what he should say.

"Jackal-" Niou noticed Marui's eyes widen slightly at the name.

'Shit! I really shouldn't have said that! Damn it! Damn it all.' Niou panicked. He waved his hands around uselessly in the air, trying to conjure something up on the spot to say.

"Um, I was…I was going to um, argh darn it!" Niou gave up, throwing his hands up in the air. Words of encouragement just really wasn't him. He was useless, utterly useless at it. And he felt exactly like that. What kind of friend was he? Not being able to comfort a friend in need.

Luckily for him, Yagyuu came over after realising that Marui had woken up. "Niou-kun. What are you doing?"

"Nothing." Niou shifted his gaze away from the gentleman, making sure not to make eye contact. He didn't want to admit that he wasn't able to comfort Marui, and that he may have even made things worse.

"Ah, Marui-kun. You're up. Are you feeling any better now?"

Again, Marui nodded. Yukimura came up within seconds, having abandoned Sanada in the vast Recreation room. Sanada was standing in the middle of the room, looking lost, like a fish out of water.

"Marui, are you better now?" Yukimura asked.

Marui nodded yet again. He was getting really tired of people asking him that.

"Guys…I'm fine. Really."

Yukimura looked at Niou, who shrugged. They all knew that deep down, Marui certainly wasn't fine at all. He was definitely the opposite of fine at that very moment. However, the self-proclaimed Tensai of Rikkaidai could be very stubborn if he wanted to. There was no point in trying to change his mindset.

"Well, Marui. If you would like, you can come and join us in some games. We're killing time by playing here. Er…I think Yanagi might be better at explaining why, it's his idea after all." Yukimura said before departing, going back to Sanada.

Niou, Yagyuu and Marui stared at each other for a few moments. Niou sighed, aware that Marui was not going to move on his own accord. He stood up and grabbed the red head by the wrist.

"Come on, let's go to Yanagi for some explanations."

"Wha-" Marui started to protest.

"Niou-kun. That is quite rude. Please release Marui-kun, he doesn't seem to like it." Yagyuu pushed his reflective glasses up. "Also, you've heard why Yanagi has suggested that we do this, you don't really need to disturb his conversation with an old friend when you yourself can explain everything."

"I'm lazy." Came Niou's short reply.

"…"

"Puri." Niou smirked. He tugged the red head again. "Come on Bunta, let's go."

Niou's intention was to get Marui to do some other activities, anything really, to get the red head to stop having any self-guilt thoughts. He knew that he was being pushy, but hey, for a stubborn guy, what else could the trickster do?

When the duo reached the data masters, Niou was surprised to see that the two data players weren't having a conversation. They were, however, staring at Niou and Marui when they waltzed over.

"What? You guys weren't even having a conversation. Stupid Yagyuu and his stupid gentlemanly issues." Niou said.

"Actually…we were." Inui replied.

"The probability of you interrupting our conversation was 100%. That's why, we stopped to prevent that from happening." Yanagi explained.

Niou stared at the two like they were aliens from another planet. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't. No one knows. Niou shook his head, getting rid of irrelevant thoughts that crept in.

"Yanagi. Explain why we're here to Bunta." Niou shoved the reluctant red head in front of him. Marui was looking down at his shoes, Niou could see a small pout on his face.

As Yanagi updated the red head on their situation, Niou stood behind Marui, making sure that the red head couldn't run away. Yanagi shooed them away after he finished, resuming his conversation with Inui.

"Well, now you know." Niou placed his hand on Marui's head. "Let's go and find something to play."

Marui gave the trickster a forced smile, one that Niou of course, saw through.

'Maybe bugging the brat might get Bunta out of his depression…' Niou thought, leading the way towards their second year ace who was still in a heated battle with Hiyoshi.

* * *

_Buzz._

The young butler, who had been trying to camouflage himself against the walls the entire time, jumped in shock.

_Buzz._

It came again. Taki glanced around nervously. Making sure that everybody had their attention somewhere else, and not on him, he quietly slipped out of the Recreation room.

'Good thing that that silver head guy isn't still playing darts.' Taki gave a sigh of relief as he wandered around the mansion. He certainly wouldn't be able to creep out of the room undetected if Niou was hurling dart after dart at the dart board. He turned at multiple corners, left, right, left, left, and so-on.

Melodious laughter could be heard from a room as he neared it. He slowly pushed the door open and slammed it shut behind him. Leaning against the back of the door, he sighed and tilted his head back, not caring that he had hit it against the door.

"Hush…" He whispered. A girl, cladded in a white dress stood in the middle of the room, holding a stuffed rabbit in her hands. She had been laughing and twirling around, chatting even, to the stuffed toy.

Taki moved away from the door, reaching his hand out and bending over slightly to pat the girl on the head.

"You have to be quiet. I can't let you be found…" He whispered tenderly. The girl nodded, an angelic smile etched on her face. Taki stroked the girl's hair lightly and straightened up.

"I have to go now. Be careful okay?"

He then exited the room, giving one long and loving gaze to the girl before shutting the door.

* * *

**A/N: Read and review please~  
**

**Not much happened I know. But...they need a break don't they? Too many deaths already in one day.  
**

**Oh my gosh! Who's that girl? Is Taki up to something? I wonder...**

**By the way, am I focusing too much on Rikkaidai? Should I focus more on the other schools as well? I'm sorry if I am, I'm just simply in love with Rikkai xD  
**

**Argh, I think I made Niou a bit bipolar, he went from concerned Niou to pushy Niou. Sigh...  
**

**Ahem. Hope you've enjoyed it and I'll see you again when I update~  
**


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I do not own PoT. I only own my OCs. **

Thank you all for the reviews~

Enjoy~

* * *

**Chapter 6  
**

Taki slipped back into the room, undetected.

Or so he thought.

"Where were you?" He heard an almost feminine voice behind him. Taki nearly jumped out of his skin. He slowly turned around and saw a male with light brown shoulder length hair, whose cerulean eyes seemed like they were staring right into his soul.

Taki shivered, and remembered that he had been asked a question.

"I went to the bathroom." He lied.

"Ahn~? Fuji, what's wrong? It's your turn." Taki turned to look at his employer.

"Nothing Atobe. I'll be there in a second." Fuji replied. He shifted his attention back onto the shivering butler. "We've planned that no one should go anywhere alone. It's too dangerous. Next time you have to go somewhere, just inform one of us."

Fuji gave the butler a kind smile, before turning on his heels and going back to the billiards table, where Atobe was waiting impatiently for him.

"Geez, making ore-sama wait like that. What's there to talk about with that measly servant?"

"I was just informing him about the danger. It seemed like he went out alone, apparently to the bathroom." Fuji answered, focusing on the billiards table.

"Alone?" Tezuka questioned.

Fuji hit the cue ball with the billiards stick (A/N: Is it called that?), nodding in reply.

"Hn."

* * *

Taki gave a sigh of relief. He had thought that he was caught. He was glad to know that they believed his bathroom story and didn't question any further. He didn't know what to do if he ever got caught.

He slipped back into the shadows, making himself as invisible as possible. He was simply a servant after all, he didn't have the right to hang around with his employer's guests.

* * *

Hours flew by as the tennis players entertained themselves with the various games. Taki and Marui went to the kitchen again, this time, to prepare dinner. Why did they still make Marui follow when he didn't do anything before, I don't know. I guess that they just didn't want someone to be alone.

"Ahh~" Kikumaru stretched his hands. "That was fun nya~!"

"I've played all of the games already…" Kirihara was looking dejected.

"Shall we watch a movie then?" Fuji suggested.

"Ooh! That'll be fun!" Kikumaru readily agreed, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"What do you have Atobe?" Yukimura asked, amused.

Atobe sighed, resting his head on his palms. Did he really have to keep repeating that he had everything?

He picked up a remote that was lying on one of the shelves and pressed a few buttons. Suddenly, the lights in the Recreation room dimmed, and a huge row of movies appeared out of thin air. Okay, not out of thin air. The shelves moved and revealed a room full of DVDs.

"What should we see?" Ootori asked.

All of them shrugged, poking each other in the ribs and telling one another to choose a movie.

"Er…" Ootori looked at the group, who couldn't seem to decide on a movie to watch. "Shall we just watch Sherlock Holmes?"

"What's that?" Sanada asked. Jaws started to drop onto the ground.

"Sa-sanada-fukubuchou!" Kirihara stuttered. "You don't know Sherlock Holmes?!"

Sanada frowned.

"Pft." Niou let out a laugh.

"Do you have something to say Niou?" Sanada's eyebrows were twitching.

"Nope." Niou popped the 'p'. "I'll go check on Bunta."

Niou then left to go to the kitchen. Unbeknownst to Sanada, the trickster had escaped not only to go and look for the red head, but also to let out his laughter. Outside of the room, Niou was clutching his stomach as he almost rolled on the floor laughing. He staggered on the way to the kitchen, leaning against the walls so that he wouldn't fall over, still laughing hysterically. What was so funny about Sanada not knowing Sherlock Holmes? No one knows. It had to be a joke that only the trickster knew.

"I bet even Buchou knows who he is." Echizen said.

This time, it was Tezuka's turn to twitch his eyebrow. "What are you implying Echizen?"

"Nothing."

"Echizen, Tezuka may not look like he knows movies, but trust me, he does." Fuji answered, giving the first year a calming smile, which by the way, do not look calming to Echizen at all.

"Fuji…"

"Ah, what's the matter, Tezuka?" Fuji gave his captain an innocent smile.

"2-"

"Maa maa, let's just watch the movie shall we?" Oishi intervened. He quickly gestured to Ootori, who was the one who had suggested the movie, to place the disc into the player and start the movie. They already had a murderer on the loose, friendly fire was not something that Oishi wanted to happen.

The people in the room perched themselves comfortably on the sofas and waited in anticipation for the movie to start.

Kirihara rubbed his stomach and groaned, "I wish that we had some popcorn right now…"

"Oh come on now, we're going to have dinner soon." Yukimura softly muttered, indirectly telling the second year to keep his mouth shut. Yukimura was looking forwards to watching the movie as he had not watched it before and Kirihara being whiney during the movie was not what he wanted.

* * *

They had only just started the movie when the doors burst open to reveal the young butler, Marui and Niou.

"Dinner's ready."

"Ah." No one moved from their seat.

"What are you watching?" Marui asked, popping the bubble that he had blown from his gum. He squinted his eyes at the screen for a few moments and realized from the opening credits that it was the movie, Sherlock Holmes 2.

"Fukubuchou didn't know who Sherlock Holmes was." Niou snickered into Marui's ear.

Marui simply raised an eyebrow at the silver head, not understanding what was so funny. Not everyone knew who Sherlock Holmes was. Sanada just happened to be one of them.

Oshitari then picked up the remote and paused the movie. Groans of annoyance were directed to the Hyoutei prodigy.

Oshitari simply ignored them and said, "Where are we going to eat though? If you remember, we kind of left Kabaji's body in the dining room."

"Oshitari. Do you really think that ore-sama only has ONE dining room?"

There was a slight pause.

"Er…you mean you have more?" Oishi asked.

The Hyoutei regulars, except for Atobe and Kabaji…cause he's well, dead, whispered to each other.

"It IS Atobe after all…"

"Let's just cut the chit chat and eat already. I'm starving!" Kirihara whined.

"What about the movie?" Yukimura asked, slight disappointment could be heard in his tone if you listened hard enough. He wanted to watch the whole thing, and the opening credits were NOT the whole movie.

"We can just bring the food here if you'd like to. We can eat while watching I guess." Marui shrugged.

"That would be a fantastic idea. Marui, would you please do that?" Yukimura sweetly asked, relieved that there was a solution to the problem.

Yanagi stared at his captain from across the room and was mentally taking down notes about his captain's strange behaviour.

"Yeah sure. Haru, care to help?"

Niou stared at the red head. "Bunta. Seriously?"

_'When have I ever helped?'_

_'Oh, I don't know. Maybe now?'_

The two of them had a small conversation telepathically and Marui ended up dragging the reluctant silver head back to the kitchen. Niou obviously wouldn't bother helping if Marui hadn't used force. Taki, of course, followed the two of them back to the kitchen as well.

"Now, would you un-pause the movie?" Yukimura turned to Oshitari. Yukimura either had skills of persuasion or Oshitari also wanted to watch the movie, as Oshitari un-paused the movie a split second after Yukimura posed that question.

The doors burst open again and this time, cart-loads of food were wheeled in by the three. The wonderful aroma filled the room and the hungry tennis players scrambled up from their seats to take their pick.

* * *

They were munching on their lovely food when suddenly, a fight scene appeared on the screen. Normally, the tennis players would have enjoyed the scene as it was the climax of the movie, however, the death of the characters reminded them of the situation that they were in.

They frowned as they struggled to swallow the food that were in their mouth.

"Um…mayb-" Someone started.

"Maybe this isn't the best thing to watch right now. Is…what you were about to say right?" Yanagi finished.

"Um…yeah…"

"That's true." Sanada continued to frown, you could see wrinkles on his forehead, which would probably turn permanent if he didn't stop right now.

"Who was the smart guy to suggest this movie?" Kirihara growled. Ootori flinched, as HE was the one who had suggested it.

"Hey! Don't insult Choutarou! He was just trying to help." Shishido backed up his doubles partner.

"Shishido-san~" Ootori was so overjoyed that his senior had protected him that you could practically see him shining from happiness.

"Argh. Let's just watch something else now. Something WITHOUT any death/fight scenes."

They all racked their brains to think of any movies that would fit in that category. However, the only ones that they could think of were children shows.

"Happy Feet?" Marui suggested.

"Huh?"

"It's about this dancing penguin."

"Bunta. Is the penguin chubby?" Niou asked.

"Yeah…maybe…?"

Niou snickered. "Guess fat people watch movies about fat stuff as well."

"I AM NOT FAT!"

"Marui, Niou, stop it."

The two stopped at the sound of their captain's voice.

"Anyone else have any other ideas then?"

"No…"

"Happy Feet it is then." Yukimura clapped his hands together, looking uncharacteristically cheerful. Wasn't he upset about not being able to watch Sherlock Holmes?

Thus, they ended up watching Happy Feet, and…dancing penguins. At first, some of them were groaning about how childish it was, but they ended up enjoying it. Kids.

* * *

"Well, that was fun."

Some of them were standing up and stretching their limbs, which had gotten stiff from sitting so still throughout the movie.

"Yeah. It was better than…" Kikumaru trailed off, refusing to utter the movie's name, less they would remember it again.

"What time is it now?"

"10:33pm" Came an accurate reply from the two data masters. "1 hour and 27, no 26 minutes and 30 seconds left till midnight."

Kirihara gave a loud yawn. "I'm sleepy."

Apparently, yawns were contagious as one by one, each of the individuals started yawning as well.

"Ah…you're right." Mukahi eyed the room. "What are we going to do though? Sleep?"

"No. We can't all sleep at the same time. We would be like sitting ducks for the killer." Oshitari reasoned.

The others nodded in agreement.

"Shall we take turns?" Heads whipped around to stare at Inui. "I mean, some of us stay up to keep watch, while the rest sleeps."

"Oh."

"That would work."

"Who's going to sleep first then." Niou asked. "Personally, I'm fine with staying up."

"I WANT TO SLEEP!" Kirihara shotgunned.

"We should let the younger members sleep first, while the older ones stay awake." Yanagi said.

They then counted the number of second years, plus Echizen, and the number of third years, plus Taki.

"So…4 of you can sleep first?" Oishi questioned.

"Too many of us would be awake then." Yagyuu pointed out.

"That's true."

"How about we halve it?"

The tennis players stared at each other blankly.

Yagyuu sighed. "Who would like to take first watch?"

Niou shrugged before raising his hand.

"I think the captains should stay up as well." Tezuka volunteered for the three of the captains. None of them complained though.

Taki piped up, "I'll stay up as well."

"Of course." Atobe strictly replied. He wasn't going to allow his servant to sleep on him.

"I guess about 6 more of us could stay up."

Sanada made a low sound.

"That means he volunteered." Yukimura translated for his vice-captain.

"Me too." Fuji said.

"I guess I will too." Oshitari drawled.

"Don't forget about me. I'm not going to allow any freak to get near Choutarou." Shishido crossed his arms.

"Shishido-san~" Ootori was beaming with happiness again.

"Only Ootori?" Oshitari asked.

Shishido blushed a deep red. "N-no! I meant all of us!" He stuttered.

"Yeah…right…" Mukahi whispered to Hiyoshi.

"Mukahi-senpai, you're too close."

Mukahi rolled his eyes at the underclassman and skipped back to Oshitari's side.

"Sadaharu." Yanagi looked at Inui.

"Renji." Inui replied.

They both nodded at each other and raised their hands to volunteer.

Tezuka nodded. "Okay, now that that's done, the rest of you can go to sleep if you'd like. We'll be here to watch over all of you."

"Alright!" Kirihara exclaimed, jumping onto the couch and fell into a deep slumber within seconds.

Yukimura chuckled as he looked at the second year lovingly. The second year always felt like the baby of their team. The Rikkaidai regulars all doted on him a lot and probably spoiled him too. They felt obliged to protect the second year from any danger.

"Bunta, go to sleep too." Niou urged.

"But Haru. I slept quite a lot already this afternoon."

Niou rolled his eyes. "Sleep. Now. You'll have to keep watch later so just get your damn sleep." He basically ordered the red head.

"Argh, fine I get it already." Marui reluctantly curled up into a ball on the soft carpet, closing his eyes as he tried to fall asleep. Niou sat down beside the red head. Niou knew that Marui was still upset about what happened earlier that day. Marui just didn't show it. However, being his best friend, Niou knew him the best.

One by one, the tennis players who were not on the 'keeping-watch-team' slowly drifted off into dreamland.

The middle schoolers who were still awake decided to have a conversation. It was boring just sitting there in silence.

"How long are we going to keep watch for?" Atobe asked.

"A few hours, I guess. We'll wake them up then and we'll switch." Inui replied.

Atobe nodded in understanding.

"Are we going to do this every night?" Oshitari asked this time.

"Only until we get out of here on Monday morning." Atobe paused. "So, only tonight and tomorrow night."

"Hopefully we can prevent any other…you know…from occurring." Fuji said.

"Yeah…"

Silence filled the room for a short while.

_Dong. Dong._

A loud noise resounded throughout the mansion. Startled, the tennis players jumped up onto their feet and looked around.

Atobe waved his hand. "Calm down. It's just the old grandfather's clock that always rings at midnight."

True enough, the _dongs_ came another 10 times before stopping, signaling that it was midnight.

"Well…it's midnight now…what's going to happen?" Niou asked.

They waited around for a few minutes, staying on alert. Not a single thing was amiss. Nothing.

"Maybe they gave up, because we're all on alert." Oshitari tried to come up with a reasoning.

"I highly doubt that that is the case." Yanagi frowned.

Kikumaru stirred. He sat up and rubbed his eyes.

"Fuji…" He called.

"Hm Eiji?"

"I need to go to the bathroom…"

"Ah." Fuji turned to look at the other awake regulars. "I'll go with Eiji. It should be fine right?"

Inui thought that he felt something wrong. He felt like he should stop Fuji from leaving. He tried to place a finger on what that feeling was. However, he quickly dismissed the feeling when he couldn't figure it out, thinking that he was just overreacting.

Tezuka, Atobe and Yukimura frowned, looking at each other for answers.

Fuji sighed, realizing that no one was going to answer his question. He turned to Kikumaru and said, "Come on Eiji, let's go."

He pulled Kikumaru up onto his feet and the two of them made their way to the door.

"Fuji. Kikumaru. Be careful. Do not let your guards down."

"Hai Tezuka." Fuji tried to reassure his captain with a smile. The two of them quickly disappeared out of sight.

'I really hope that they would be fine…after all…midnight IS over, isn't it?' Tezuka thought.

* * *

"Fuji…am I causing you any trouble?"

Fuji glanced to his left. "It's fine Eiji."

"Oh." Kikumaru looked down for a moment. Fuji was about to ask acrobat what was wrong when Kikumaru suddenly gained a new burst of energy, cheerfully replying, "That's good nya~!"

Fuji chuckled. Glancing around, he asked, "Eiji. Do you know where the bathroom is?"

"Eh?" Kikumaru looked around as well. "I don't know nya. Atobe never did tell us where everything was…"

"That's true." Fuji frowned. Wasn't the first thing to do when you have guests over was to tell them where everything was in the house? Well, not a house, as Atobe's 'villa' could very much pass as a mansion…

Since both of them had no idea where to go, they just decided to walk around till they found one. It was pretty brave of them as there had been a warning for a midnight appearance of the murderer…

"Ah! Found it!" Kikumaru exclaimed after spotting a small sign that said 'Toilet'. The sign was similar to what you'd find in shopping malls. Fuji raised an eyebrow at that.

'Atobe's place sure is interesting.' He thought.

Suddenly, Fuji saw a shadowy figure creep towards Kikumaru.

"EIJI!"

Hearing his name, Kikumaru turned around when a questioning look.

"Wh-" Kikumaru was prevented from speaking any further when a hand came from behind him, clamping some kind of cloth over his mouth. He struggled for a bit, kicking his legs and using his hands to try to pry the attacker off him.

"EIJI!" Fuji kicked off the ground, desperate to help his friend. However, another hand crept up from behind him.

"Hmp!" Fuji's voice was muffled as he tried to scream. He felt his eyes slowly get heavier and heavier. Through groggy eyes, he could see Kikumaru's body slowly lose resistance and going limp.

Fuji tried to fight the urge to close his eyes. He struggled in the attacker's hold, trying to escape, but to no avail.

'The midnight warning!' Was the thought that ran through Fuji's mind. 'But…midnight's already over… why now?'

Suddenly, he felt something hit him in the stomach.

"Oof!" Again, his voice was muffled behind the cloth that was over his mouth.

'Is this it?' He thought, his vision blurring. 'Is this the end for me?'

Fuji felt his own body slowly go limp. 'Taka-san. Kaidoh. Momo. Guess it's time for me to see you again…'

Fuji's vision went completely black as his eyes finally closed shut. His body went limp like a rag doll. There and then, Fuji Syuusuke, lost consciousness.

* * *

**A/N: Read and review please~**

**FUJI! -screams-  
**

**Haha Tezuka's phrase "Do not let your guards down" really works in this situation.  
**

**_Everyone! DO NOT LET YOUR GUARDS DOWN!_ - can totally imagine Tezuka saying that 24/7.  
**

**Oh, and about the movies that they chose...you can change the titles to whatever you want I guess. I just suddenly remembered those two movies so yeah...  
**

**Okay, I really don't think people can forget about deaths so easily like they did, but I like them better all happy and cheerful rather than sad/depressed and stuff T_T (So just please excuse that unrealistic part.)  
**

**I'm seriously starting to wonder how big Atobe's mansion is. (Even though I'm the one that created it...) Multiple dining rooms? REALLY?! How RICH is that guy? - I seem to keep emphasizing on how his 'villa' is a mansion xD  
**

**OH! And about Taki...well, is he good or bad? We'll find out later~ It is to keep the suspense up hohohoho~  
**

**Speaking about hohohos. Early MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR! (Okay, maybe not SOO... early...but argh, nvm.)  
**

**New years make me sad for some reason. I DON'T WANT TO GROW OLDER! (Wishes to stay young forever) -cries-  
**

**^- All of those are very irrelevant, I'm sorry. I better go now. **

**See ya~  
**


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I do not own PoT.**

Ahahaha! Sorry anyone if I happen to just kill off your favourite characters! It's not that I hate them. I actually like some of them too ;

Oh! And CRAZEMisaki thanks for letting me know that it's a cue stick. I'm too lazy to change it though. Haha, is that bad? xD So yeah...just mentally change it I guess? SORRY FOR MY LAZINESS!

Thanks for the reviews and enjoy~

* * *

**Chapter 7  
**

"Argh…"

Fuji cracked open his eyes.

'Am I dead?' He wondered, looking around. However, it was so dark that it took him a while for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

Fuji blinked his eyes slowly. No. It certainly doesn't look like a place where dead souls would go to. 'Where am I?'

Fuji only remembered getting caught and seeing… He gasped. 'EIJI! Eiji, where's he? What happened to Eiji?' He shook his head in panic, desperate to find out what happened to his friend.

He was lying down, on something soft. Fuji lifted his upper body up into a sitting position, finding out that he was in fact, lying on a bed.

_Clank!_

His right hand was restricted by something. Fuji tugged at it for a bit. It refused to get loose. Feeling with his left hand, he realized that it was a handcuff. He tried to loosen it with his left hand, but to no avail.

Fuji looked up. His right hand was cuffed to the frame of the bed.

"What's this?" He muttered.

He could move his legs and left hand freely, the only part of his body that was restricted was his right hand. If only he had a pin or something, he might be able to pick the lock on the handcuff. Sadly, he was a guy, not a girl, who might have countless amounts of hairpins stuck into her hair.

Fuji struggled with the handcuff again, only to give up when he realized that it was not going to budge.

He decided to observe his surroundings. Looking around, he found that he was in some kind of room. There was a small door opposite the bed, and a small window on top of the bed. Small streams of light floated into the room through the tiny window, only bright enough to let Fuji's eyes adjust to the darkness, not bright enough for Fuji to thoroughly analyse his surroundings.

Fuji was about to check if he could reach the window when the door slammed open.

Fuji whipped his head around to look at the figure entering the room.

"So, you're awake."

Fuji's eyes widened. "Y-you!"

* * *

Meanwhile… back in the recreation room.

"Fuji and Kikumaru have been gone for quite some time now." Inui said.

"Hn."

"Should we check on them?" Inui asked.

"…We should." Tezuka turned to look at Atobe, who was silently looking over his team. "Atobe. We're going to look for Fuji and Kikumaru. To check if everything is alright."

"Hm? Tezuka. Wait. Ore-sama will come along." Atobe paused for a second, glancing at the Rikkai captain.

Yukimura waved a hand, gesturing to them to go. "I'll take care of everything here. Be careful."

"Hn." Tezuka nodded. He glanced at Inui and said, "Inui, come with us as well."

Thus, Tezuka, Inui and Atobe left the recreation room in search of Kikumaru and Fuji.

The trio arrived outside a bathroom. Inui went in to look for any signs of the two but only to find none.

"Where did they go?" Tezuka asked.

"Probability that they got lost is 78%." The two Seigaku regulars turned to stare at Atobe.

"What?"

"You never did show us around." Tezuka said.

"Tezuka, about that. Atobe never got the chance to, because of certain events." Inui explained.

"…"

"See? Don't go around blaming ore-sama." Atobe haughtily proclaimed, pointing a finger at the Seigaku captain. (Which was quite rude, by the way. Luckily for Atobe, Yagyuu wasn't there to go into a long lecture about why pointing fingers at others was rude.)

"Let's not forget what we came here for. Where do you think Fuji and Kikumaru went?" Tezuka sighed, rubbing his temples.

Atobe rolled his eyes. "Let's search at the other restrooms. They might have gone there instead."

Off they went, to one restroom to the next. They had probably went through 20 restrooms when Inui asked, "Atobe. How many bathrooms do you HAVE?"

"Don't even bother counting."

Inui was stunned. How did Atobe remember where everything was in such a large mansion?

"Do you reckon they came this far?"

Atobe stopped walking, causing Tezuka and Inui to almost crash into him.

"Atobe, don't just stop without any warning." Tezuka grumbled.

"Found them." Atobe stared into the distance.

"Hm?" Tezuka and Inui followed Atobe's gaze. A few metres in front of them lay a body. Their eyes widened.

'Did the murderer claim his midnight prize?!' They thought, panicking. Breaking into a run, they arrived in mere seconds.

"Kikumaru." Lying on the ground was the Seigaku acrobatic player.

"Is he alright?" Tezuka asked Inui, who was kneeling down to check on Kikumaru.

Inui leaned down to feel Kikumaru's pulse. He let out a sigh of relief when he felt a faint pulse in the red head's wrist. Inui looked up and nodded at his captain.

"He's just unconscious."

Inui sniffed the air around the red head acrobat. "Chloroform…" He coughed a few times, stopping himself from inhaling too much of the said chemical and passing out himself.

Tezuka closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. He had been worried that another Seigaku regular was taken away from them.

However…

Tezuka glanced around, spotting Atobe emerging from the restroom. Atobe shook his head.

"I don't see Fuji around." He announced.

Time seemed to stop at that moment for Tezuka. Fuji was missing.

"Wh-what?" Tezuka stuttered. Atobe was right. There was no sign of Fuji anywhere. No sign to indicate whether the Seigaku prodigy was alive or dead.

"AHH!" A loud shriek came from behind Tezuka and Atobe. The two quickly whipped their heads around, only relaxing when they realised that it was just Kikumaru who had screamed.

Kikumaru had regained consciousness and was frightened to the core. He had awoken to see the data player's reflective glasses shining into his eyes. He then remembered what happened before he passed out.

"Fuji! Where's Fuji!" Kikumaru frantically waved his hands in the air, getting into a sitting position. He looked at Tezuka and Atobe with hope that they would have some answers, only for it to die when the two of them slowly shook their heads.

"Kikumaru, what happened?" Tezuka asked.

"No." Kikumaru had his hands up to his face, tears dripping down his cheeks. "No. Don't tell me. Th-they got Fuji!"

Kikumaru choked out a sob.

"Wh-" Tezuka started.

"Wait." Atobe interrupted. "Let's go back to the recreation room and discuss about this issue with everyone. Fuji's missing. Everyone has the right to know."

* * *

The walk back to the recreation room was unpleasant. Kikumaru was hysterical and his body was weak from being unconscious, therefore, he had to be supported by Inui at the back. Tezuka and Atobe walked in front, heads held high as they tried to wrap their heads around the strange disappearance of one of the Seigaku regulars.

"Yukimura." The blue haired youth lifted his head up after hearing his voice. "Wake up the rest. We have something to tell them."

Yukimura was confused as to why he was asked to do such a thing, but when he examined the number of people the second time, he quickly realised the reason why and went to do as he was asked.

Yukimura was responsible for the Rikkai regulars, Atobe the Hyoutei, and likewise, Tezuka, the Seigaku regulars.

"Tezuka?" Oishi sleepily asked. "What's wrong?"

"…" There was no reply from the stoic captain.

The tennis players who had been sleeping took a few minutes to fully awaken. Some were yawning as they stretched their limbs, their eyes droopy from the sudden wake-up call.

"TARUNDORU!" Sanada boomed at the Rikkai regulars, who were visibly startled by the sudden loudness. "Get your butts off the floor and wake up already!"

"YES SIR!" The Rikkai regulars, except for the 3 Demons, quickly got into a military 'at-attention' position. Yes, even Niou, even though he had not been sleeping. That was the power of their vice-captain.

"Genichirou…" Yanagi slightly frowned. "That was unnecessary…"

"Well, it's fine isn't it." Yukimura smiled. He was happy to know that his team was so well-trained. (For what? Really…)

"Are you guys done?" Atobe drawled.

Sanada gave a curt nod, although his expression showed otherwise.

Atobe gestured to Tezuka to explain to the tennis players why they were suddenly rudely awoken in the middle of the night.

"A-"

"Hey, where's Fuji?" Oishi asked, looking around for the prodigy.

"Oishi…" Kikumaru cried out, running into his doubles partner's arms.

"Eh? Eiji?" Oishi was confused. He decided to awkwardly pat the red head on the back.

"Oishi. I was just getting to that."

"Ah, sorry Tezuka."

Clearing his throat, Tezuka started his speech again. "All of you are probably wondering why we woke you up."

Nods spread around the room.

"Well-" Tezuka took off his glasses and wiped his eyes. "Fuji is missing."

This time, gasps spread around the room.

"Fuji-senpai?" Echizen was stunned. Fuji was one of the people whom he thought would not get caught by any mysterious people. Fuji was scary after all. He may look feminine and frail, but one cannot judge a book by its cover. (The same thing applies for Yukimura.)

"Wh-what?" Oishi blurted out. "Fuji's missing? What happened? When did it happen? How did it happen?"

In his arms, Kikumaru was sobbing loudly, getting louder and louder with each word that the Seigaku vice-captain said.

Oishi was at a lost. He didn't know whether to comfort Kikumaru, whom the poor vice-captain had no idea why he was crying, or to continue bombarding his captain for answers.

"We don't know." Tezuka shook his head. Seigaku was getting the brunt of the situation, with 3 dead and 1 currently missing. What on Earth did they ever do to deserve such a fate?

"I-I was with him! Yet!" Kikumaru exclaimed.

"Eh? Kikumaru-senpai?"

"Eiji?"

This time, they looked at Kikumaru for answers, however, the red head was crying too much to answer any of them. (He was mumbling words that were nonsensical to them though.)

"Eiji and Fuji went to the bathroom. We realised that they were taking too long and decided to go and check on them. After a long search-" Inui glared at Atobe for a moment. "-we found Eiji outside one of the restrooms. He was unconscious, due to the presence of chloroform-"

Everyone in the room, except for Atobe, Tezuka, Inui and Kikumaru, gasped at the sound of the chemical.

Inui was visibly annoyed by the interruption and cleared his throat.

"Sorry." Someone mumbled.

"As I was saying, we found Eiji unconscious but there was no sign of Fuji at all." Inui pushed his reflective glasses up on his nose. "Sadly, I have absolutely no data on where he might be."

"How useless." Shishido snorted.

"No one would have any data for this event." Yanagi backed up his childhood friend, who was pretty upset about Shishido's comment. "How about YOU try figuring out where Fuji might have gone to."

"Hey. I'm not the data master here." Shishido lifted up his hands as if surrendering.

"O-"

"Guys. Let's not argue." Oishi intervened. (Why does he always seem to be the one intervening arguments?)

"Kikumaru would probably have the rest of the answers." Tezuka said, looking at the red head.

Kikumaru, unfortunately for them, was STILL crying hysterically.

They sweatdropped. _'We're not going to get any answers soon are we?'_

They decided to just wait until the Seigaku acrobatic player calms down before continuing…

* * *

"Ah..." She placed a finger on her chin, face wearing a large grin. "I'm sorry that I came so late to pick you up. I had some…difficulties…"

The girl walked forwards, placing her hand under Fuji's chin, tilting his head so that he would be looking directly at her. She disliked the expressions in the boy's eyes. They were of fear and, oh, was that, hatred?

"My dear…are you scared of me?" She rubbed her fingers along the prodigy's cheek, pushing strands of hair away, and slowly creeping down to his lips. Fuji cringed at her touch. He definitely did not enjoy having the stranger place her hands all over his face.

The girl licked her lips, bringing her face down closer to Fuji's. Fuji could feel her breath on his skin, and resisted the urge to shiver. It wouldn't do him any good to show any signs of fear.

She moved her mouth towards his ear, whispering, "No…are you perhaps, angry? Angry at me for not coming on time?"

Fuji's eyes widened. _'What on Earth is she on about?_' It wasn't as if he WANTED this creepy person to grab him and dump him into some stinky dark room!

The girl quickly jerked her head back, stepping backwards, away from the prodigy.

"That's not good. I might have to do something…" Her eyes narrowed, as she bit on her thumbnail. Turning on her heels, she quickly left the room, slamming the door shut behind her, leaving the brown haired prodigy to himself.

Before she disappeared out of sight, Fuji caught some words that she had been muttering to herself, such as, "-stupid…refused...let go-"

Those words made no sense to the prodigy.

Fuji decided not to bother about those words and instead, focus on the dire situation that he was in. How was he going to get out of here? Also, he had yet to find out about Kikumaru's situation.

* * *

Back at the mansion (villa), they waited. And waited. Waiting for?

Kikumaru of course!

They were planning on squeezing answers out of the red head, and that could only be done when the red head stops crying.

The task required a lot of patience. And trust me, for middle schoolers, in that situation, patience was something they definitely lacked.

"FOR GOODNESS SAKE! Stop crying already!" Kirihara yelled out, throwing his hands up in the air.

Kirihara's patience had snapped. He was already grumpy about being awoken in the middle of his nice and deep sleep, in addition to the news about Fuji, the guy who had beaten him in tennis, being missing, Kirihara's mood was somewhat similar to him being in devil mode on the tennis courts.

All of the Seigaku regulars, except for Kikumaru, gave the second year death glares.

"It's not Kikumaru-senpai's fault for crying." Echizen pointed out.

"Yeah. Echizen's right... Eiji was the witness after all." Oishi said worriedly.

"But!" Kirihara tried to come up with an argument. "We've ALL seen a death occurring right in front of us-"

The Hyoutei regulars all flinched, remembering their dear Kabaji.

"Do-"

"-and we're not crying non-stop like him are we?!" Kirihara continued, interrupting Atobe.

He had a point. However, being an underclassman, he was being rude to a senior. This time, it was Sanada's turn to give the second year ace a death glare, telling him to shut up.

"Bu-"

"Brat. Just shut up." Kirihara turned to look at the trickster, who was leaning against Yagyuu.

"Kirihara. Fuji and Eiji are good friends." Said Oishi. "We don't know what happened to Fuji, and if it's something so horrible as to make Eiji cry like that, the best we could do is to wait."

"Tch." Kirihara clicked his tongue, turning away from everyone in the room.

And thus, the waiting began again...

It took them about another 20 minutes before Kikumaru finally calmed down and was in a better condition to talk properly.

"_Hic!_ I-I went to the _hic!_ Bathroom with Fu-Fu-Fuji…" Kikumaru pushed back tears that were threatening to fall. "A-as we _hic!_ Didn't know where the bathrooms w-were… _hic!_, we ke-kept walking till w-we fou-found one."

The middle schoolers turned to look at Atobe, as if saying that it was his fault for the incident.

"Idiot Monkey King." Echizen mumbled, tugging his cap down.

"Wh-" Atobe was furious, his fists clenched tightly into a ball, his nails digging into his palms. The purple haired diva did not like being blamed for anything, even if it may or may not have been his fault. (This was definitely NOT his fault though.)

"Shh. Let's let Kikumaru continue."

They had finally gotten the chance to get answers from the red head and did not want to take any risks, less he might suddenly explode and cry again, causing them to lose their chance at finding any clues that may aid them in the search for Fuji. Kikumaru was already hiccupping while explaining and they needed every bit of their concentration to decipher the red head's story. Therefore, arguments were not accepted at that moment.

"Eiji, can you continue?" Oishi asked in concern. The vice-captain had a worried expression on his face as he looked at his doubles partner.

Kikumaru nodded, not without giving another hiccup. _Hic!_

"Af-after walking for a while, w-we finally found a bath-bathroom and then-" Kikumaru squeezed his eyes shut as he recalled the terrifying scene.

"-som-someone came up from behind me and-" Kikumaru placed one hand over his mouth and nose, demonstrating to the others. "-placed s-some sort of cloth over my mouth. I don't k-know _hic!_ W-what it was but-"

"Chloroform Eiji." Inui interrupted.

"_Hic!_ A-ah, ch-chloroform…I struggled _hic!_ For a bit but…" Kikumaru bit his lip, drawing blood. "I-I _hic!_ Slowly fe-felt my consciousness s-slip away. Fu-Fuji was trying to _hic!_ He-help me but he…he…was also caught. _Hic!_ I tried to scream! I did! B-but I couldn't!"

Kikumaru buried his face in his palms. "I-I don't _hic!_ Know what happened next. E-everything went black… Then-" He looked up to glance at Inui, Tezuka and Atobe. "-I w-woke up an-and saw you three. _Hic!_"

There was a moment of silence, as the tennis players let the new information sink in. They didn't learn much, but any tiny bit of information was useful at that moment.

"So we still don't know whether Fuji's dead or alive." Yanagi said, frowning as he tried to come up with possible scenarios in his mind.

"Wait." Niou said, startling some of the tennis players. "There was no sign of anything at the toilet? Nothing?"

Inui, Tezuka and Atobe tried to visualise the area where they found Kikumaru again. There certainly was nothing that could lead them to Fuji. So, they just shook their heads at the trickster.

"Isn't that weird then?" Niou asked, making some excellent hand movements as he tried to turn some idea in his mind into words. "Don't the murderer normally leave notes behind?"

All of the captains' eyes widened. Indeed! The murderer normally left notes behind with the bodies!

Wait.

With the bodies.

"Fuji's body wasn't there though." Atobe said.

"If, and I mean if. If there were to be a note. It would probably be beside Fuji. The thing is, we don't know where Fuji is. We don't even know whether he's dead or alive, and I'm hoping it's the latter." Tezuka said, shutting his eyes.

"Tsk. This is so lame!" Shishido narrowed his eyes and glared at the ground.

The tennis players couldn't agree more. They felt pathetic that they had allowed one person to disappear even when they were warned about it, and had made plans to prevent that from happening. Not only were they warned that it was going to happen, they were even told the time of the occurrence.

None of them felt worse than they did at that very moment in their whole life.

* * *

**A/N: Read and review please~ Pretty please?~  
**

**Argh. I really really hate that creepy lady. AND I MADE HER! -sad-  
**

**How dare she do that to my dear Fuji T_T  
**

**Why is she keeping Fuji there?! Where IS Fuji anyways? Will the other regulars ever find him?  
**

**Haha~ Wait to find out I guess. I always seem to do that don't I? e.e  
**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I do not own PoT.  
**

* * *

**Chapter 8  
**

"What do we do now?"

"Let's search around! We need to find Fuji!" Oishi cried out.

"But..."

The other tennis players from the rival schools looked at each other, unsure of that idea.

"Tezuka! We can't just leave Fuji out there somewhere! We have to find him!" Oishi pleaded with his captain, hoping for the other to agree with him. He grabbed hold of Tezuka's arm and shook it frantically.

Tezuka kept his eyes shut, ignoring his vice-captain's plea. What could they do? If he could, he would also want to look for the prodigy, however, they had to face reality, it wasn't safe out there. Heck, it wasn't safe anywhere.

Tezuka had to be responsible and think not only about his own team, but about the other two teams. It was too dangerous to take any risks.

Oishi eventually gave up trying to get Tezuka to agree, and instead, turned to look at all of the middle schoolers.

"Guys. I know that we're not really friends, but Fuji's missing. You may or may not like him, but please, please, help us to find him!" Oishi tried to convince the rest to search with him.

"Oishi..." Kikumaru muttered. "Oishi! I'll search with you nya! I want to find Fujiko too!"

Under his breath, so no one else to hear him, he said, "It's my fault. I was there with Fuji when he went missing."

"Eiji..." Oishi smiled, relieved to know that someone was as worried as him.

"Mada mada dane. Oishi-senpai." Echizen smirked, using a finger to push his white cap up, grinning at his vice-captain. That was Echizen's way of saying that he'll help too.

"Oishi. We'll all concerned, but you have to face the facts. We don't know who is lurking out there, we can't put ourselves all at risk by looking for one person." Yukimura tried to reason.

"That's right." Sanada agreed. "Even if we did search, Atobe's place is too large. It'll take us days to cover the whole area!"

"We'll make it work! If we all do it together, we can split up and cover the distance within a few hours." Kikumaru jumped up, holding a fist in the air, as if he was trying to lift his team's morale during a match.

The crowd started to mumbled amongst themselves, while Kikumaru and Oishi awaited anxiously for what they hoped to be good news.

"Renji." Inui looked at the other data master. "What do you think the probability of us finding Fuji is?"

"Sorry Sadaharu," Yanagi admitted. "Unfortunately, the probability is very low. Less than 5% chance, even with leniency."

"..." Inui frowned, and looked down at his shoes, watched how the white colour of his shoes contrasted greatly with the dull blue carpet. He had also came to the same conclusion, but had hoped that Yanagi had better results than him.

"However, if we do split up and do a thorough search through Atobe's villa, the chances would increase to about 10%."

Inui immediately looked up at the Rikkai Master, face shining with newfound hope. "Really Renji?"

Yanagi nodded. "That's still a pretty low percentage though."

Inui shook his head. "Even if it's just one percent difference, it's still a lot."

"We're going ahead with the search aren't we?" Yanagi asked, even though he already knew the answer.

Inui nodded.

"How are we going to convince the rest though?"

Both data players stared at the other tennis players, who still had doubt written all over their faces. It wasn't going to be an easy task.

"Renji, is it alright with you if I ask you to-"

"Convince my teammates? Sure." Yanagi agreed, without even waiting for Inui to complete his sentence.

Seigaku, besides Tezuka (even though he actually wanted to), was set on searching for Fuji, thus, the only thing to do was to convince Rikkaidai and Hyoutei to aid them. Since Yanagi was in charge of Rikkai, Inui was in charge of Hyoutei.

'Hyoutei listens to Atobe. If I can just get Atobe to agree, the rest of the Hyoutei team would be in it as well.' Inui thought. The problem was. How was he going to convince Atobe?

Inui was busy pondering over that when he heard an, "Inui-senpai."

"Yes Echizen?" The first year was standing in front of the data player.

"You need help convincing Atobe to search with us don't you?"

"Eh? How d-" Inui was surprised.

"Mada mada dane, Inui-senpai." Echizen gave the stunned third year a grin and walked up to the purple haired diva, who had settled himself comfortably on one of the couches. Echizen stopped less than a foot away from the diva, and looked straight into Atobe's face.

"Ahn~? What do you want brat?"

"Help us with the search."

"Why should ore-sama do something like that?"

"Because," Echizen smirked, "this is your villa."

"So?" Atobe raised an eyebrow, not understanding where Echizen was going at.

"Fuji-senpai went missing in your villa. Therefore, it's your responsibility to find him."

Atobe narrowed his eyes at the first year, who was grinning at him. Atobe lifted an arm and placed it around the backrest of the couch, crossing his legs.

"Ore-sama normally would make sure that his servants would search every nook and cranny, but this is different. Why should ore-sama place himself in danger?"

"So you're saying that you're scared?"

"What?" Atobe's eyes narrowed even further, a frown etched onto his face.

"I'm saying that you, Monkey King, are too scared to look for Fuji-senpai. That's why you refuse to help us."

Atobe slid his arm off the back of the couch, placing both palms onto his knees, and leaned forwards, so that he was right in front of the smirking first year's face.

"Brat." He sneered. "Ore-sama do not get scared."

Echizen was not unnerved by the purple haired diva's actions, and stood his ground, challenging the third year.

"Your actions are different from your words."

Atobe shot a death glare at the first year, and growled.

"Ore-sama will show you how ore-sama isn't scared." Atobe leaned back into the couch. Lifting up his right hand, he snapped his fingers and declared, "Hyoutei will join the search."

"Atobe!" There were sounds of disapproval from the Hyoutei regulars, but Atobe silenced them all with a glare.

"Listen to me or I'll have you all taken off the regulars positions."

They kept their mouths shut immediately.

By that time, Echizen had already walked back to Inui. "There, Inui-senpai, done."

Opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish, Inui quickly scribbled down new data about his freshman teammate.

On the other side, Yanagi had no troubles convincing the Rikkai regulars to join. All he had to do was spout out some data, in addition to logical reasoning as to why aiding in the search would benefit them.

It wasn't as if the Rikkai Master had been lying. What he said did have some truth to it. If they searched the mansion, they would be searching not only for Fuji, but for the culprit's hiding spot at the same time. It was basically killing two birds with one stone. That was, if Fuji and the culprit was somewhere in the mansion. Even if they weren't, the tennis players would know that the mansion was free of any unwanted company.

Thus, as all three teams were convinced, and as they had an even number of people (20 when you add Taki), they decided to go in pairs and allocated different areas to the pairs to check.

"Come back here after you're done." They agreed and left.

* * *

If they had looked out of the window, they might have spotted a girl leaning against the trunk of one of the trees surrounding the mansion. She held a pair of binoculars as she observed the tennis players in the mansion. Putting it down slowly, she took out a handheld transceiver from her backpack and pressed a red button.

"Come to G8 right now. Over." The girl commanded to a person on the other side of the handheld transceiver.

"On it. Over."

It only took a few seconds before her accomplice arrived, still fully dressed in black, blending in the darkness of the night. The moonlight was the only source of light at that time of day.

"What is it?" The male asked, tugging his mask off his face.

"I want you to prolong this camp to at least a week. 2 days is too short."

The male seemed surprised at the girl's request, but nodded anyway.

"I don't care how you do it, but make it quick." She shooed the male away with a flick of her hand. Running her hands through her hair, she untangled strands of hair that somehow managed to tangle themselves.

Putting the binoculars back up to her eyes, she observed the tennis players again as they spread out across the whole mansion.

* * *

_Ring. Ring._

Ryuuzaki-sensei was soundly asleep when she was awoken by the ringtone of her telephone.

"Eh? Who the hell calls at-" She checked her bedside clock. "-1:34am!?"

Still, since she was already awake, she picked up the phone with an annoyed, "Yes?"

"Ah, Ryuuzaki-sensei. I'm sorry for disturbing you this early in the morning."

"Oh, Tezuka, it's okay. What is it?"

"I would like to inform you that we've extended our training camp to a week. Would you mind informing our parents that as well?"

"A week? Are you sure?"

"Hn."

"Oh okay. I'll do that." Ryuuzaki-sensei stifled a yawn.

"Thanks, Ryuuzaki-sensei."

"No problem. Bye." Placing the telephone back down, she yawned again and plopped back onto her queen-sized bed.

"Why is my team so troublesome…?" She sighed. "Now I have to call each and every one of their parents."

Rolling onto her back, she placed her hands over her eyes. "I'll do that when I wake up." She drifted off to sleep again in a jiffy.

* * *

"-inform you that we've exten-"

"Tezuka?" Fuji muttered, hearing the familiar voice of his captain on the other side of the door.

Fuji had been sitting on the bed, thinking about ways to escape from the room when he heard a voice from the other side of the door.

_'What's Tezuka doing?'_ Fuji thought, leaning as far forwards as the handcuff allowed him to, trying to hear the conversation a little clearer.

"-parents that as well?"

_'Inform? Parents? What is he saying?'_ Fuji was puzzled. _'Where am I anyway. Am I in the mansion?'_

"-anks, Ry-"

Fuji swore that he almost heard a name, a name that he knew so well.

"Tezuka!" He called out, tugging on the handcuff, trying to get even closer to the door.

"TEZUKA!"

Silence followed shortly after.

_Creak._

The door slowly swung open, revealing a male, that even in the darkness, Fuji knew was not Tezuka. Fuji shrunk back, hitting his back against the wall.

_'Who is this?_' He thought, his heart rate increasing due to fear.

"I'm not your captain, boy." The male placed one hand on the side of the door, keeping it from shutting. "I suggest you sit here quietly like a good boy before anything happens to you."

The male didn't move, staying still in the same position, as if awaiting a reply from Fuji.

Fuji frowned and nodded his head. He sworn that he had heard Tezuka's voice. Who was this man and where was Tezuka?

Satisfied with Fuji's reply, the man walked backwards out of the room and shut the door with a click.

Again, Fuji heard voices, not Tezuka's this time, but Atobe's, as well as Yukimura's.

_'What is going on here?'_ Fuji was really confused, unable to think straight anymore.

* * *

"Mission done, missy. Over."

The girl growled. "Don't call me missy, or I'll have your head chopped off."

"You didn't say over. Over."

"Don't tell me what to do!" She snapped. "Ignoring what you've said, good job. Over."

Stuffing the handheld receiver back into her backpack, she hoisted it over her shoulder and ran through the dense forest, only stopping after what seemed to be 700 metres. Using a rope, she hooked the end onto one of the windowsills of the mansion, climbing up it with grace. Peering through the window, she took note of her position and smiled.

Settling herself into a comfortable position where she would not be seen from the inside, she waited.

* * *

It wasn't until a couple of hours later, when dawn broke, did the tennis players finally complete their hunt and gather back up in the recreation room.

"Found anything?" Tezuka asked.

All of them shook their heads.

"We've checked wardrobes, toilets, under furniture, heck, even in the fireplace and up the damn chimney! But nothing, nothing at all." Kirihara declared.

"I searched on the stupidly large chandelier in one of the rooms!" Mukahi challenged. "Bet you can't do that Kikumaru!"

"Hoi?" Kikumaru was surprised to be suddenly brought into the conversation. "I can so!"

"Wann-"

"Gakuto..." Oishitari interrupted, pointing at the three captains, who were not pleased by their childishness.

"So...what we did was basically useless." Hiyoshi said, dropping onto the floor to take a rest.

"No." Yanagi said, causing everyone to turn their attention onto him. "Although we've not found Fuji, we've cleared the possibility of anyone suspicious hiding in the villa."

"And...what's the point of that?" Marui said. "Even if they're not in the mansion, they still somehow keep getting to us."

"So you're basically saying that the creeps are hiding like monkeys on trees in the forest out there?" Niou asked.

"Basically. Yes."

"What?" Kirihara exclaimed. "Are we meant to search the whole forest too?"

"Akaya." Yanagi folded his arms across his chest. "That would be illogical."

"The forest spreads out over miles of land. It'll be impossible for us to look through it." Inui pushed his glasses up on his nose. "However, we now have a sense of ease to know that the culprits are not staying right under our noses."

"Oh..."

"Wait." Hiyoshi paused. "No. Not really."

Inui stared blankly at the second year. "Is there something wrong with my data?"

"Even if the murderer isn't in the mansion. It isn't as if I'm more at ease."

"Oh..." That was true.

Oishi sighed. "I wonder where Fuji is...I hope he's fine..."

"Oishi." Tezuka placed a hand on his vice-captain's shoulder. "Keep hope. Fuji will not go down so easily like that."

"Ah, Tezuka." Oishi looked up at his captain. "You're right."

"Hn." Tezuka gave Oishi's shoulder a little squeeze, before removing his hand and letting it fall back to his side. Tezuka himself wasn't even so sure about his own statement. Sure, he wanted to believe in the idea that Fuji was alive and well, however, the circumstances and results of the search brought his hopes down.

"Fuji-senpai will be fine." Tezuka was startled by the sudden statement from the first year.

"It's Fuji-senpai after all." Echizen gave a tiny smile.

"Hoi! You're right O'chibi nya!" Kikumaru jumped a little, placing an arm around Echizen's neck.

"Kikumaru-senpai, it hurts!" He grumbled.

"Even if Fujiko is captured, he'll come up with some genius plan to escape!" Kikumaru ruffled Echizen's hair. "Fuji's Seigaku's Tensai after all!"

Even Oishi had to chuckle at the sight of Echizen trying to escape from Kikumaru's hold. "Mm. You're both right."

Oishi and Tezuka started to feel a little better, their hopes about Fuji came back within a second. They would never doubt any of their regulars. Keeping faith in each and every one of them was Seigaku's spirit.

(From a more logical point of view – It was better to keep hoping for the best, rather than fear for the worst.)

* * *

"I don't know about you all, but...I'm going back to sleep."

"Akaya! Don't just-!" Marui shouted, however, it was a little too late. The second year was already soundly asleep, resting his head on Yukimura's shoulder.

Marui groaned. "Bakaya..."

"It's fine Marui." Yukimura smiled at the red head, patting Kirihara's head while he slept.

"But Buchou. Isn't it your turn to sleep now? You guys didn't even get to sleep a wink."

"We can survive without sleeping for a day fatty."

"But-" Marui protested, ignoring the fact that Niou had called him a fatty.

"I'm not tired Marui, it's alright if he sleeps. As long as some are awake to keep watch." Yukimura shifted on the couch, gently placing Kirihara's head down onto his lap.

"I can't exactly sleep right now anyways." Ootori admitted. "It just doesn't feel right to... especially when we don't know about Fuji's condition."

"Hey..." Niou wondered. "Do you think that if we all try to walk to town, they would kill us?"

"I'm pretty sure we'd be dead. They had sent us a warning about what would happen if we tried to escape remember?" Atobe reminded him, "Plus, do not forget that our enemy probably has a machine gun."

"Ah true... the servant massacre..."

_'And Jackal...'_

Niou leaned back and looked up at the ceiling, humming a tune.

"Are we just going to sit here and do nothing for the whole day?" Mukahi asked. He was currently drawing random circles with his finger on the carpet.

"Hm..."

"Well, I don't know about you, but," Echizen stood up, adjusting his cap. "I'm going to get some Ponta."

He started to walk towards the door, but stopped halfway, turning around to look at Atobe.

"Monkey King. You do have Ponta don't you?"

"Ahn~? Ponta? They are in the kitchen." Atobe was too busy thinking about ways to get out of the villa and back to civilisation that he didn't bother about Echizen calling him 'Monkey King'.

Echizen turned back to face the exit and continued walking, this time, making it all the way there and leaving the room.

No one noticed that he had left alone. Only Taki did, swiftly following the first year to the kitchen.

* * *

Taki didn't know the boy with the white cap's name and jogged to catch up to him.

"Why are you here?" Echizen asked, looking at the young butler from the corner of his eye.

"Um...you left alone so...I thought that I should follow you." Taki scratched his head. "You know...since 'stuff' are happening and all..."

"Heh..." Echizen voiced out, but didn't complain about having Taki following him.

Taki took that as permission to follow and stuck to Echizen's side.

"Ponta. Ponta. Ponta." Echizen muttered as he rummaged through cupboards in search for his favourite drink.

"Um..."

Echizen stood up and brushed dust off his shorts, turning to look at Taki.

"The Pontas are here." Taki said, pointing to the open cupboard in front of him.

Echizen quickly made his way to the young butler and tip-toed a little bit, so that he could reach the Ponta that was on the cupboard shelf.

Taki quietly and gently closed the cupboard doors shut after Echizen had grabbed his Ponta.

Echizen opened the can with a _snap_, the gas bubbles could be heard as they fizzled. Taki made his way to the kitchen doors first, while Echizen only took two steps, stopping, threw his head back, and took a huge gulp from the can.

Placing a hand on the handle of the door, Taki swirled around as he waited for Echizen to follow him.

However, what he saw wasn't what he expected.

Instead of walking towards him like a normal, healthy person, Echizen was lying on the ground, shaking from the seizures that he received every few seconds.

Taki let out a huge, manly scream as he scrambled down the hallways.

* * *

_Creak..._

A lone figure pushed the window open, slipping into the room with ease.

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

Her boots sounded as they came into contact with the marble floor.

"Heheh." She chuckled maniacally, placing her left palm on her left cheek.

Reaching for the object that was slung over her right shoulder, she grabbed it and _snap!_

She flapped the photograph in the air as she waited for it to dry. Taking a look at it, she smiled.

"This should do it," She muttered, climbing back out through the window in which she came in through. As she dropped back down onto ground level, she brushed dust of her clothes and grinned.

"Nothing shall interfere with me and my darling Syuusuke." She let out a laugh, throwing her head back and arms into the air. "NOTHING!"

* * *

**A/N: Feedback would be loved.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: I do not own PoT.**

* * *

**Chapter 9  
**

"KEIGO-SAMA! KEIGO-SAMA!"

They heard Taki before they even saw him.

"What the-" Atobe replied, but was interrupted by the loud slam of the door hitting the walls as Taki pushed the doors open with such force that seemed as if he wanted to rip the door off its hinges.

Taki was red faced and panting heavily as he placed his hands on his knees, bending over while trying to get his breath back.

"Taki-san, what's the matter?" Ootori asked, his eyes filled with concern.

Taki stood up straight, the look on his face was desperate. Using various hand motions, he tried to explain the situation.

"Bo-boy with…with the cap-" He mimicked Echizen's signature gesture with an imaginary cap, "-in-in kitchen!"

"What what what?" Mukahi asked, annoyed.

"Is there something wrong with Echizen?" Oishi inquired, understanding Taki's description of their precious first year.

Taki gave up explaining, and instead, resorted to jumping up and down on the spot like a little kid throwing a tantrum and pointing to the direction of the kitchen.

"Come! COME!" He yelled, hoping for someone, anyone, to get their butts off the carpet or couches and to follow him.

Oishi, being Seigaku's mother hen, immediately stood up. He knew from Taki's desperate plea, that something was wrong with Echizen. Tezuka followed not long after, and the two of them raced off after Taki, as Taki had sprinted back to the kitchen after Oishi had stood up.

* * *

Taki stood at the edge of the door, one arm was raised, pointing into the kitchen, waiting for Oishi and Tezuka to reach him.

"H-he-he!" Taki stuttered.

Tezuka peeped into the kitchen, spotting his first year regular member on the floor. It seemed so familiar, an image of Kawamura's body on the ground flickered into Tezuka's mind. He shook his head, getting the image out of his mind.

When Tezuka focused on the scene in front of him again, he noticed that Oishi was now kneeling by Echizen's side, shaky hands inching closer to the first year.

It didn't take a doctor to realize that the first year had been poisoned. Foam had formed around Echizen's mouth and onto the kitchen tiles. A can of Ponta lay by his side, some of its contents spilled, making a puddle on the floor.

Tezuka caught sight of some letterings on the bottom of the can and raised his eyebrow.

Tears streamed down Oishi's face. He placed his palm on Echizen's hair, adjusting the boy's cap as it probably had fallen off when he fell.

Fear didn't seem to exist anymore.

All they felt was deep sadness.

The number of deaths that they had seen had made them immune to the fear of death. They only felt the pain when one of their friends were taken away from them. So cruelly in fact.

"Why?" Oishi choked out. "Why Echizen?"

The question was left unanswered.

The true question that Oishi wanted to ask was actually, "Why us?"

However, that was left unasked.

Oishi knew that none of them had the answer. Why bother wasting his breath to ask?

Oishi lingered around Echizen's body for a while. Tezuka standing off at a side, and Taki trembling at the doorway.

"Oishi," Tezuka said, walking forwards and placing his hand on Oishi's shoulder. "Let's go."

They couldn't do anything just standing around a dead body. They had to report this to the others, who were still in the recreation room.

Tezuka sucked in a deep breath. Things really weren't going well at all.

Two days.

The training camp only lasted two days.

They were on the second day, and already…

Tezuka breathed out slowly, calming himself down. He didn't look unnerved on the outside, however, on the inside, the stoic captain was panicking.

His team. Tezuka kept reminding himself that he had to be strong for his team. If he, as the pillar of Seigaku, crumbled, the rest of the team would crumble along with him.

Before they left, they grabbed some canned food off the shelves and stuffed them into a large garbage bag that they'd found. They probably wouldn't dare to step into the kitchen again due to Echizen being in there, thus, they decided to grab whatever food was available and convenient for them to eat. (Even though Atobe probably has more kitchens.)

Tezuka also remembered to grab the Ponta off the floor, shaking the rest of the contents into the sink, and passed it to Oishi to hold.

Tezuka placed both hands on the side of both doors, looking at the first year's body before squeezing his eyes shut, and closing them. Another room sealed off due to a dead body.

The trio trudged down the hallways, the garbage bag, now filled with treasures, was slung over Taki's shoulder.

* * *

"O'chibi…" Kikumaru was crying yet again, after hearing the news from Tezuka.

The Seigaku captain gave a nod, and gestured to Oishi to pass the can to him.

"Tezuka, what's that?" Inui asked curiously. He had his pen and notebook in place, ready to take notes at any time.

"I found this beside Echizen." Tezuka turned the can around, so that the bottom was facing up. "He was definitely poisoned."

"Poisoned…" Inui scribbled down some notes. "This is the first time that they had used poison. Interesting…"

"Interesting?" Shishido muttered under his breath. Inui was a strange one. How could he think that using poison to kill someone was interesting?

"They have a note again this time."

Atobe looked up. "Where?"

Tezuka lifted the can up a little, to show that the said note was written on the can, instead of a piece of paper like the others.

"Ponta. I knew that this boy's favourite drink was Ponta. He's always drinking it. Ha. Who knew that that would be what killed him?" Tezuka read out.

"It seems that whoever it is knows us." Yanagi said.

"Yes, Renji. This is not a mere case of random murders. Whoever it is chose us, for some reason. And there's a 96.45% possibility that they know everything about us, from this note." Inui agreed.

It was the most likely explanation. How else would they know that Echizen loved to drink Ponta?

"The only question is why." Yukimura mused. He chuckled softly not long after.

* * *

Sunlight brightened up the room, allowing Fuji to view more than what he could with the limited moonlight that night.

_'Why did I hear Tezuka?'_ Fuji pondered. _'That guy…who is he? What do they want with me?'_

_'Stupid handcuff.'_ Fuji tugged on it again, this time with more force. _'If I can just get out of here!'_

Fuji slid his legs off the bed, shifted himself so that he was closer to the head of the bed and tried to stand up. Tried. He couldn't as he was restricted by the handcuff.

Fuji swore under his breath.

He was so focused on trying to free himself from the handcuffs that he didn't notice the door opening and closing, and that there was someone else in the room.

"Don't bother." He heard the female. "You'll never break out of those no matter how hard you try."

Fuji tilted his head. Narrowing his eyes at the female, he growled, "You'll never know until you try."

She tossed her head back and laughed. Fuji continued to glare at her.

"Try then." She walked a few steps forwards. "Just don't break those pretty little hands of yours."

By that time, she had reached Fuji and was leaning over him, while he leaned backwards, trying to get as far away from her as possible.

The girl moved her hands forwards and started to rub them over Fuji's right arm, going lower and lower, to his wrist, which was bounded by the handcuff.

"I like you in one whole piece." She murmured into his ear, sending shivers down his spine.

"Don't touch me!" Fuji yelled, using his left hand to whack her.

The female jolted back, as if surprised. Rubbing her hand that was starting to turn red, tears started to well up in her eyes and her voice trembled.

"Wh-why? Don't you like me?"

Fuji was confused. He didn't know who that person was, why would he even like her?

"Do you like someone else?" Her pitch went higher. She was shaking her head around like a mad woman, her hair, that was neatly in a bun, was now messed up.

"Is it one of those _friends_ of yours?" She sneered. The way she said 'friends' was as if it was a curse.

"How could you, Syuusuke? When I love you so much?" By then, tears were already streaming down her cheeks.

_'Syuusuke?'_ Fuji thought. _'Why is she calling me by my given name? What does she mean by love?'_

"Never mind that!" She grinned, all signs of her ever crying disappear, as if she was a new person. Pulling something out of her pocket, she waved it in the air for a second before her eyes started twinkling.

The girl tossed it towards Fuji like a Frisbee, the object landing perfectly on the bed. "Maybe you might change your mind after seeing _that_." She gave another maniacal laugh before leaving the room.

Fuji stared at the door for a few seconds.

Twisting his neck a little, he frowned at the object that was left behind.

What was it that made the girl think that he'd change his mind after viewing it?

Fuji gingerly picked it up with two fingers, like it would bite him any moment. There was a name on one side, the side which Fuji was looking at.

_Echizen Ryoma. Age 12. _

_'Echizen?'_ Fuji thought, flipping it over.

The photo was thrown away to the corner of the room the next second. Fuji curled up into a ball on the bed, burying his head between his legs.

_'Echizen!'_ He kept repeating in his head. _'How could they? Why Echizen?'_

Fuji's cerulean eyes trembled with fear. _'Everyone...'_

Suddenly, Fuji brought his head up from between his legs, and screamed, "YOU MONSTER!"

His palms were clenched tightly into fists, he felt the strong urge to punch the female. No. Kill her.

The door creaked open again, the girl slipping in quietly. She leant against the wall beside the door and smiled.

"I'm no monster."

"Lies."

"I'm doing this for our sake, Syuusuke. For our future." She tilted her head as if confused, confused as to why Fuji was reacting so violently like that.

"We have no future." Fuji growled.

"We will. Fate has brought us together." She placed one hand on her cheek as she went back into the past, as if remembering a dear memory. "You'd never know how I felt when I first met you."

Fuji felt disgusted by the female's actions. Disgusted at how she was blushing and moaning. If this was a normal day at school, people would probably have fake gagged, or worse, really puked.

"When I saw you, I knew. I just knew, that you're the one for me. If it wasn't for that day when I decided to take the long route home and passed by the tennis courts, I wouldn't have saw you. Wouldn't have fallen in love with you." She sighed. "It was fate. Just fate."

"You witch. You killed my friends for your stupid delusion!"

Her eyes flared dangerously, her tone changing drastically. Gone was the female who was blushing and smiling sweetly about her first love. The female in front of him right now was a killer, a vicious one at that.

"Your _friends_ were trouble, darling. They were keeping us apart. Can't you see?"

"We were never together. I don't even KNOW you."

"Hahaha! Stop joking dear. Look! I have photos! Photos from our dates together."

Fuji narrowed his eyes. He certainly would have remembered going on dates. The only one he remembered was when Kikumaru, Echizen and Momoshiro forced him to go on a date with an elementary schooler, Kurumi.

He saw the girl slide out and back into the room, holding a box. She lifted up the lid and took out a few photos.

He noticed her flipping through them, before deciding on one and flashing it to Fuji to see.

"Look! This is my favourite." She smiled.

It was a picture of him when he was at the amusement park with his family. Yuuta had made a rare trip home, and both of his parents were taking a break from their vacation around the world. It was one of the rare occasions when his whole family went out together. Fuji saw himself standing in front of a rollercoaster ride, smiling brightly like always, Yuuta standing on his right looking away from the camera, as if shy, Yumiko was on Fuji's left, her hand placed on his shoulder. Their parents were standing at the back, his mother's arm snaked around his father's waist, while his father's arm was slung over his mother's shoulders, like a loving couple.

Fuji wondered how she'd ever managed to get hold of such a picture.

"You were such a sweetheart here. You even brought me on a date with your whole family. They were so kind!"

"You're delusional! You were never there!"

She placed her hands over her chest and gasped, as if hurt. "How did you forget dear? It was the first time I met your parents!"

Fuji squeezed his lips tightly together. There was no point in trying to reason with a psychopath. She'd obviously thought that she'd been there with him.

"Do you understand why I have to get rid of your _friends_ now?" She asked, her voice soft, as if talking to a loved one.

Fuji stared at a certain spot on the wall, refusing to make eye contact with the witch.

He heard her sigh and close the box.

_Tap. Tap._

The sounds of her boots hitting the floor resounded as she left the room, shutting the door with a click.

_'I have to get out of here now!'_ Fuji squeezed his eyes shut. _'Momo. Kaidoh. Taka-san. Eiji. Echizen. I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…'_

Fuji cried that morning. For the loss of his friends, and for being the one that caused their deaths.

* * *

Kikumaru sneezed.

"Eiji, are you alright?" Oishi asked, rubbing the red head on the back.

"I'm fine nya."

"Kikumaru-san. I have some medicine if you'd like." Ootori offered, being the nice guy that he was.

"No-"

"I should have brought my vegetable juice with me. It would prevent you from getting sick." Inui interrupted, a glint shined from his glasses as he smiled like a mad scientist.

"NO! Not Inui juice nya!"

Inui looked confused for a moment, wondering why Kikumaru reacted that way to his marvelous juice.

"Tezuka, what's in there?" Yukimura asked, pointing to the garbage bag, that was now placed on the carpet.

"Canned food." Tezuka replied. "I figured that we probably wouldn't want to go into the kitchen again."

Yukimura nodded in understanding, before patting Kirihara on the head, playing with his hair for a little while.

* * *

The tennis players spent the rest of the day sitting around in the recreation room. Some went to play with the games once in a while.

They ate the canned food that Tezuka, Oishi and Taki brought from the kitchen. Atobe, for once, didn't complain about the food and ate in silence.

They kept on alert the whole day, reacting to the slightest of sounds, and making sure that everyone was in their line of vision.

Night soon fell. The tennis players felt slightly relieved. They only had to survive the night before Atobe's coach would arrive to pick them up and go back to safety.

"The day had been pretty calm."

"Do you think that Echizen was the last of the murders?"

"Don't think about it. Just sleep."

They did the same routine as they did the night before. Some of them kept watch while the others slept.

A few more hours. Just a few more hours before they were back to safety.

The tennis players thought about that the whole night, keeping hope that they'd all make it back in one piece, alive.

* * *

The tennis players woke up the next morning nearly beaming with happiness. All of them rushed to the front doors, cracking it open while they spied on the driveway. They didn't even bother to grab their bags, they just wanted to leave the mansion.

They waited impatiently for the coach to arrive. Their one and only hope.

* * *

"They have a bus arriving to pick them up. Over." A voice crackled through the handheld transceiver.

The girl nearly dropped the technological object after hearing that statement.

"WHAT?! WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME EARLIER?!" She growled into the transceiver, before throwing it across the room.

She grabbed another identical looking one, pressed a button and scowled, "Brats have a darn bus arriving. Do something. I don't care what. Stop the bus from coming. Over."

"Okay~ Over." The male's tone was playful.

"Don't joke around. I want you to do this seriously. Everything will be ruined if they manage to escape. Over."

"Yes missy! Over~"

"GAH!" She yelled, throwing the technological object across the room, similar to what happened to the first one.

_'They can't escape. I won't allow it.'_ She thought, before picking up a rifle that was leaning against a wall. Checking that it was loaded, she glanced at the direction in which she discarded her handheld transceivers.

Sighing, she walked over to the corner and picked them up. Amazingly, they weren't damaged. They did hit against the wall pretty hard. She smiled, slipping them into her back pocket. Her supplier was good.

The female left the room, slamming the door shut, her rifle slung over her shoulder.

* * *

**A/N: Read and review please.**

Hope that this chapter explains a bit more as to why the girl's killing them off, and to why she wants Fuji. Seigaku's really getting eliminated off eh? xD And no. I repeat. It is not because I hate them that I kill them! Dx

Fuji's pretty OOC in this chapter. Well, I would be like him if I was put in that situation. Okay, maybe more freaked out and crying my head off. A lot more freaked out.


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: I do not own PoT.**

* * *

**Chapter 10  
**

Up on the trees, a man was whistling to a tune, while holding a pair of binoculars and scanning the area. He would have sounded like a normal bird to any outsiders.

He was about to start swaying along with the tune when he spotted what he was looking out for.

There.

A white bus, with big and bold letterings in purple, which read out, 'Atobe', was cruising down the winding road.

"Hoho. Target lock on." He joked, placing the binoculars down and taking out a sniper rifle.

* * *

Seconds turned to minutes, and minutes turned to hours.

The tennis players were still waiting for the coach to arrive. And they were losing hope, fast.

"Atobe! Didn't you say that the bus is going to come today?" Shishido yelled at his captain.

"Yes. Ore-sama definitely told them to come today."

"Then why isn't it here?! We've been waiting for HOURS!"

"Shishido-san. Let's just wait a while more. Maybe it'll come later."

"Argh fine, I get it already, Choutarou." Shishido crossed his arms angrily.

"Probability that the bus got into an accident 54%." Inui suddenly said, appearing right behind the Hyoutei regulars.

"Accident?!" Kikumaru shrieked.

"I would hope not." Oishi fiddled with his fingers, a worried expression on his face, which the tennis players are starting to wonder whether it was permanently on the Seigaku's vice-captain's face.

"28% that it's just delayed."

"I doubt a simple delay would take hours." Yukimura said, folding his arms across his chest.

"The rest of the 18% is unknown." Inui finished, snapping his notebook shut.

"So we're betting on accident or unknown. Awesome." Niou commented, hands shoved into his pants pockets, leaning against a wall.

_Pop._

Marui was on the floor beside Niou, casually popping the bubble blown from his gum like he had no care in the world. If one looked deep into his eyes, they would realize that his outer demeanor was simply a bluff.

"What should we do now? Sit here and wait like idiots for a bus that would probably never come, or go and find something to do?"

Eyes focused on Mukahi.

"We're not going to have to spend another day here are we?" Hiyoshi asked.

"We don't have a damn choice do we?"

"Gakuto-"

"Unless Atobe can somehow miraculously contact that stupid bus driver or something, we're stuck here. Until someone comes." Mukahi continued ranting, ignoring the death glares that was being sent to him by his captain.

Oshitari sighed, picking himself up from where he was sitting on the carpet. Brushing the dust off his pants, he turned to Atobe.

"Shall we just go back then?"

"How are we going to go home then?"

"What?" Oshitari waved his hand in the air. "This is Japan. Our coaches and parents would probably wonder why we've not reached home as planned and send people to come and check on us."

"Ah true."

Those sitting on the floor plucked themselves off and they all dragged their feet back to the recreation room.

When they went in, all of them made a beeline for the couches and plopped down onto them.

"Us being there and here makes no difference." Hiyoshi scanned the area.

When they were waiting by the front door, they were either sitting, or standing, just passing the time by staring into blank space. Now, even though they were back in the recreation room, they still did the same thing.

"What can we say? We're boring people who don't know how to entertain ourselves." Shishido tried to crack a joke. Laughing lamely by himself before fading off when no one else laughed.

"Argh…someone, do something." Kirihara groaned.

"Another movie? Kirihara-kun?" Yagyuu suggested.

"Yagyuu-senpai. Seriously?" Kirihara turned his head sideways, his cheek now resting against expensive leather, and looked at Yagyuu weirdly.

"Yagyuu, remember the last time we did?" Yanagi asked.

"We can just avoid any movies with those scenes."

There was a silent agreement.

Out came the huge row of movies and into the DVD player one went. Atobe ordered Taki to keep an eye, or ear, on the doorbell, just in case someone comes to pick them up while they were watching the movie.

The tennis players also found out that Atobe had 3D glasses available for them to use…

* * *

"Wooo…" There was a whistle.

"Man, those guys are boring." The male was lying down on his stomach on a tree branch, hidden by leaves, his legs hanging off the sides, hands on the binoculars as he spied into the mansion. "They're just sitting there watching movies."

"Separate them." An oh so familiar voice crackled through the handheld transceiver that was hanging on his belt. "Getting them one by one is so much more fun. You know who to go after. Hahaaa! Over."

"Princess has given the order. Oh yeah~!" The man rejoiced, pushing himself off from his previous position and into a sitting position. "It's fun time~"

* * *

They spent the entire day and night watching movies. Unfortunately, there was not a single sign of anyone coming to pick them up. The doorbell eagerly waiting for a person to press it had to wait a little longer, it seems.

"Is anyone coming…?" Kikumaru asked for the 10th time.

"Not yet Eiji." Oishi replied, the answer the same every single time.

Suddenly, the lights started the flicker.

"What's going on?" Atobe asked, annoyed at how the lights flickered on and off, on and off, plunging them all into total darkness, and back to brightness.

"Are the lights faulty?"

"No. Ore-sama's lights do not do this when they blow."

"…what?..."

"Forget the details! Inui, Yanagi? Any of you have any idea?"

"Hm…this is strange indeed." Inui mused, a flash of light showed that he had his hand on his spectacles.

"Sadaharu, do you think that it's the breaker tripping?" Yanagi asked, stumbling, trying not to trip over the other regulars' feet, towards Inui. The lights going on and off that quickly made the walk almost impossible, however, Yanagi managed.

"No Renji, if the breaker tripped, the lights wouldn't flicker like this."

"Atobe! Is this only happening to this room?" Sanada roared from one side, to Atobe, who was on the other end of the mini-theatre (just the left side of the recreation room with the TV and couches) in the recreation room.

"How will ore-sama know?" Atobe shouted back.

"Atobe, check?" Mukahi rolled his eyes.

"Mukahi, why don't YOU do it?" Atobe was seriously getting very annoyed. Mukahi was getting on his nerves, insulting his fabulous villa, his abilities, and now using that kind of tone on him. Atobe made a mental reminder to make sure that Mukahi receives his punishment for that when they reach home.

"Ask your servant! He's right by the damn door!"

Yup, Atobe really had to punish the acrobat.

"Taki! Check the hallways!" Atobe ordered.

They heard a soft creak, a sign that Taki was opening the door.

"Keigo-sama! It's the same out there."

"What the hell is going on here?"

"I wish I knew darn it. Stop asking!"

"Inui, figured it out yet?"

"Sorry Tezuka, not yet."

"-obility that it's the-" One could hear snippets of the data masters' conversation, as they were speaking in hush whispers, and others were a bit too noisy.

* * *

"We should just check the breaker." Oishi suddenly piped up. They had been waiting for the data masters to come up with a conclusion, but unfortunately, they didn't seem to be able to.

"But Oishi." Atobe pointed out. "The breaker is in the basement."

Oishi looked back and forth, trying to see as many faces as he could in the horrible lighting (the flickering lights). "I can go down there and take a look."

"No Oishii!" Kikumaru cried out, latching onto Oishi's left arm.

"Oishi. The danger." Tezuka reminded.

"But we've checked the whole place, there wasn't anybody else in here."

Tezuka pursed his lips together.

"I'll be back in a jiffy, it won't take me long. I promise."

"How do you plan to find your way there?"

"I was the one who looked at the basement earlier Tezuka. I know where it is." Oishi turned to look at Atobe. "Atobe, do you have a flashlight or anything?"

"Why?"

"I can't see very well when the lights are like this."

"Taki."

"Here Keigo-sama."

"Here you go Oishi." Atobe passed the flashlight to the Seigaku vice-captain.

"Oishi. Do not let your guard down."

"I won't."

* * *

"Why isn't Oishi back yet?"

"It has only been a minute Kikumaru." Tezuka replied. "He couldn't have reached yet."

"Oh."

"This flickering of lights is making me dizzy."

"Suck it up."

"What did you say?"

"Be a man and stop complaining."

"Guys, stop."

_Ding._ The lights suddenly stopped flickering and stayed on like before.

"Oishi must have done it." Kikumaru rejoiced.

"Ah." Inui and Yanagi stopped their conversation and looked at the lights in confusion.

"I was right Sadaharu. It had something to do with the breaker."

"This is illogical."

"I'm hungry."

"Again Akaya?" Marui grumbled.

"Marui-senpai! I don't have endless supply of gum like you do!"

"Shut up and eat this." Niou chucked a piece of gum that he stole from Marui at Kirihara.

"Oi! THAT'S MINE!"

"Marui, sharing is caring." Yukimura flashed a smile at the self-proclaimed genius.

Marui leant back with a sigh, sinking into the soft couch. He couldn't argue against Yukimura. No one could. Unless they wanted to face certain death.

"Why isn't anyone coming? Shouldn't our parents be wondering why we're not home yet?" Sanada asked.

"It's been nearly a whole day since we were meant to be back. They should realize it by now." Oshitari mused.

"That's really strange indeed." Tezuka added.

"Tezuka…where's Oishi?" Kikumaru asked again, this time, he was a bit frightened.

"He should have been back by now." Inui looked up from his notebook.

"I'm going to go look for Oishi!" Kikumaru exclaimed, running out of the room in a flash.

"KIKUMARU!" Tezuka yelled, but was unable to stop the acrobat from disappearing. Tezuka rubbed his temples and sighed.

"Inui, let's go."

Inui quickly followed Tezuka out of the room, and they made their way to the basement.

The Hyoutei and Rikkaidai regulars looked at each other and shrugged, before making their way to the basement as well. They had nothing else to do anyways.

* * *

"OISHIIIIII!" They heard an ear-piercing yell. It had to be Kikumaru.

"NO OISHI DON'T LEAVE ME!"

Tezuka knelt down beside Kikumaru and looked at his vice-captain. Oishi's two antennae looking hair were sticking up. Tezuka glanced to the right, and looked at the breaker. It looked relatively safe. He then turned to look at Oishi again.

"Electric shock." Inui suddenly said.

Tezuka looked at the breaker again.

"Probability that the cause of it was from the breaker is 79%."

"Kikumaru don't touch him!" Tezuka stopped Kikumaru, who was reaching out to touch Oishi.

Tezuka observed the breaker again, slowly standing up.

"Hm?"

There was a slip of paper stuck on the top of it. Tezuka frowned. Carefully, he plucked it out and read it.

"Seigaku again." Sanada commented, just arriving at the scene. He had meant no harm from that comment, but it had caused a huge uproar.

"Someone's after Seigaku! I'm sure of it!" Shishido exclaimed, turning to face his teammates and pointing a finger at Oishi.

Atobe furrowed his eyebrows together, rubbing his chin. "That's true."

Kikumaru jumped up and screamed at the other two schools. "THAT'S NOT TRUE! Who would be after us?!" He was shaking, from anger or from grief, they couldn't tell.

"Your team has been getting eliminated one by one." Mukahi sneered.

"Gakuto…stop it." Oshitari placed a hand on his doubles partner's shoulder.

"Everyone, there's another note."

Tezuka lifted up the note for all of them to see.

"Only the kindhearted ones would come down here. I had a 50/50 chance of getting the right one."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"I don't know." Tezuka looked at everyone in the eye. "Let's go back."

He then started to walk out of the basement, climbing up the stairs. Inui had to drag Kikumaru off Oishi and followed their captain.

Tezuka stopped halfway up, when he realized that the other two schools were not following him.

"Hm?"

"Sorry Tezuka." Yukimura said. "I'm afraid we can't stick together anymore."

Tezuka mouth made a firm line. "Why is that so?"

"Whoever it is, is definitely aiming for Seigaku." Yanagi explained.

"Renji…we don't know that."

"Sadaharu. Data does not lie."

"What do you mean?"

"Have you not noticed? First, it was Momoshiro and Kaidoh. Both from Seigaku. Next was Kawamura and Jackal. Jackal was not in Seigaku but he had been with Kawamura at that time."

"But what about Kabaji? The murderer even said on the note that he was aiming for Atobe."

"Ore-sama does not know why anyone is aiming for him, but ore-sama agrees with Rikkai. Your team is being targeted Tezuka."

"…"

"Kabaji's case is the only one that does not fit the theory, however, it doesn't deny the fact that the rest of the murders have been from Seigaku."

"That Fuji guy is missing as well. Who knows? He may even be the one who's behind all of this." Hiyoshi said.

"WHAT?" Kikumaru was shocked beyond belief, gripping onto the railing like he could break it into two. "Fuji will never do such a thing! He'll never!"

"Fuji will never do anything like that." Tezuka agreed.

"We'll never know will we?" Mukahi said.

"We reckon it's best to split up now." Atobe and Yukimura said in unison.

Tezuka stared at the two captains for a few moments. "Fine."

"What? Tezuka!"

"Kikumaru, stop it. We can't force them if we don't want to."

"Sorry Sadaharu."

"It's okay Renji."

The remainder of Seigaku left after that, leaving Hyoutei, Rikkaidai and Taki in the basement, with Oishi's body.

"Atobe, you're being targeted as well. Rikkai will not hang around with Hyoutei too."

"It doesn't matter to ore-sama. Do whatever you want." Atobe waved his hand lightly. After climbing up the flight of stairs to the first floor, both teams went in different directions, Taki following Hyoutei of course.

* * *

**A/N: Because they must always have a fall out in these kind of stories. Sigh.**

I made a creepy male. Creepy female + creepy male. Why do I keep doing this?

Will I kill everyone? Maybe. Maybe not.

By the way, if anyone's wondering, I did not forget about the girl in Chapter 5. Hn. Just putting it out there.


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: I do not own PoT.**

* * *

**Chapter 11**

"Did you get him? Over."

"Don't know princess. I can't see basement from out here. Over."

He heard a sigh. "I'll go down and check. Over."

Fuji woke up to see a new addition to the wall opposite the bed.

He gritted his teeth together and he was certain that his nostrils were flaring. Fuji gave a deranged yell and tried to jump out of the bed and scratch the photo off, but of course, couldn't. All he could do was sit there in anger.

He averted his gaze at the door, which opened at that moment. The female walked in. She didn't seem to notice Fuji's reaction, turning her back against Fuji and at the wall with the photo.

From behind her, Fuji noticed that she was sticking something else on the wall. He frowned.

"Take it down." He growled.

The female swirled around, her head covering the photo behind her, giving Fuji a wide smile. "Hm? What are you talking about?"

"Take down that photo of Echizen!"

"Oh…you mean this." She side stepped, lifting up a finger to point at the wall.

Fuji narrowed his eyes. There was something else beside Echizen's photo. He gasped.

"Oi…shi?"

"It's beautiful isn't it?" The female ran her finger along Echizen's photo. "Unfortunately, I don't have copies of the rest. I'll have to start from this little boy."

"What are you talking about?!"

"This is our wonderful collection! Commemoration of your darling _friends_ deaths! When this is complete…" She gave a maniacal laugh. "You'll be mine…all mine…"

Fuji bit his tongue, to stop himself from lashing out at her.

* * *

Kikumaru, Tezuka, and Inui sat in Tezuka's room. Kikumaru was curled up into a ball, his back hitting the side of the bed.

On the bed, Tezuka's bag laid open, a few pairs of pants neatly folded on the bed beside it. Tezuka must have had been unpacking when he heard the first gunshot.

Tezuka sat opposite Kikumaru, deep in thought. The notes that he had found beside each of the bodies were spread out in front of him, placed in order sequence. The only one missing was the can of Ponta. He had left it in the recreation room. Inui was on his left, scribbling god-knows-what in his notebook. The only sound in the room was the scratching of pen against paper.

The three of them had no idea of what they should do. They were separated from the rest. Forced away in fact.

Kikumaru rested his head on his thighs.

_Scratch. Scratch. Scratch._

Kikumaru wonders for how long had they been in that position. It was daytime already. Light was shining into the room through the large window.

They'd might as well be sitting ducks for the murderer.

* * *

After the Rikkai regulars left Hyoutei, they wondered if they should all stay in Yukimura's room, or go back into their own rooms.

In the end, they decided to split up. Niou and Marui went into their own rooms immediately, slamming the door shut. Kirihara clung onto Yukimura, refusing to let go, and thus, joining Yukimura, Sanada and Yanagi in Yukimura's room. Yagyuu watched his teammates for a second, before spinning on his heels and entering his own room.

Each of them steered clear from the windows, making sure that they would not be able to be attacked from outside. All of them, except for Marui, remembered to lock their doors…

* * *

The Hyoutei regulars were sitting in the recreation room. They figured that it was one of the best places to hang out at. At least they had games to play there, while they wait for help to arrive.

If help was even going to arrive.

Atobe narrowed his eyes at the can of Ponta, that was sitting on the table top. What was it doing there?

Deciding to ignore it, Atobe took out his cell phones from his pocket and placed them on the table top, beside the Ponta. He held a sigh, leaning forwards, placing his elbow on his knee and resting his head on his palm. He stared at his cell phones, as if staring at them would get them to ring.

* * *

_Scratch. Scr-_

The scratching suddenly stopped. Kikumaru twitched his ears, trying to search for more signs of human life in the room that they were in.

It was eerily quiet. One could even hear a pin drop in the room.

Kikumaru lifted his head up. Tezuka was seated opposite him like he was before, head hanging down. Kikumaru guessed that he was just staring at the notes like before. Turning his head a little, Kikumaru looked at Inui. His notebook and pen were in his hands like normal, except, he wasn't writing anymore.

Kikumaru was about to bury his head again when he heard a soft _thud_.

Inui's book had fallen out of his hand.

Kikumaru blinked a few times.

Inui never dropped his book, unless he was shocked, or incapable of holding it.

"Inui?" Kikumaru whispered.

There was no reply.

Kikumaru waited, hoping that Inui was just having a slow reaction. He hoped for the data player's head to lift up, for Inui to look at him with his reflective glasses shining in the light, to suddenly lift up a glass of Inui juice and force Kikumaru to drink it.

That didn't happen.

Kikumaru crawled over to Inui, lightly shaking his teammate. This time, Inui's pen fell from between his fingers, landing a few centimeters away from Kikumaru's knee.

"Inui?" Kikumaru called out again, this time a little louder. He started shaking him a little harder. Inui fell backwards, hitting his head against the wall behind him, laying slumped against the wall.

"Inui?!" Kikumaru called again. "This isn't funny Inui!"

Kikumaru moved closer to Inui, his thighs brushing against the fabric of Inui's Seigaku regular jacket.

"Inui?! Get up! Don't play around like that!" Kikumaru shook the data player again.

Kikumaru felt his heart beat quicker, his breaths getting more and more irregular. Kikumaru placed a shaky hand onto Inui's chest, trying to feel for a heartbeat.

There was none.

This time, his fingers moved up towards Inui's nose, as Kikumaru checked whether Inui was breathing.

He wasn't.

Kikumaru diverted his attention towards Tezuka, wondering why the captain didn't say a word the whole time.

"Tezuka?"

Like Inui, Tezuka didn't respond.

Kikumaru shook Tezuka by the shoulder. "Tezuka?" He called repeatedly. Tezuka fell down on his side, glasses crooked from the impact of the floor, nearly falling off his face.

Kikumaru fell backwards onto his bottom. "Te-te-te-te-TEZUKA!"

Kikumaru brought his fingers up to his lips, gnawing on his nails. Kikumaru looked at the notes by Tezuka's feet, looked at Inui's slumped body, looked at the door, at the window, everywhere in the room.

What happened in there?

He let out a scream and scrambled towards the door, quickly unlocking it and ran down the hallway. All he wanted to do was get out of the room.

* * *

Yanagi was walking down the hallway the same time as Kikumaru left the room. He tilted his head to the side a little, in confusion. He was about to look for Inui when he saw Kikumaru run out of the room in terror.

Yanagi stopped outside Tezuka's room, hand holding onto the handle of the door, keeping it open. He rotated his head and looked at the direction in which Kikumaru left in. He then entered the room, leaving the door open.

Glancing around, he quickly noticed the positions in which Inui and Tezuka were in and realized why Kikumaru reacted in such a way.

"Hm?"

He spotted Inui's notebook lying on the ground. Walking over, he picked it up and opened it, reading Inui's data.

Yanagi opened his eyes, something which was very rare of him to do.

"Sadaharu…" Yanagi furrowed his eyebrows together. "I see…so you've thought about that too…I will make good use of this data…"

Yanagi slammed the notebook shut and held it in his right hand, hanging down by his side. The data player was about to leave the room when he turned to see the notes on the floor.

Squatting down, he picked the notes up one by one, keeping them in the sequence that Tezuka arranged them in. He pocketed the notes and left the room. He rested his hand on the edge of the door before muttering, "Farewell, my friend."

Then, he shut his eyes and closed the door with a _click_, spinning around and walking back into the direction of Yukimura's assigned room.

* * *

Kikumaru sat on one of the seats arranged around the pool. He didn't know how he ended up there, but he did.

He was curled up into a ball like before, his back leaning against the backrest of the seat.

His eyes were wide and trembling, as he fixed his gaze on the shimmering surface of the water in the large pool.

Kikumaru never felt more alone than that.

His teammates were lying cold and still, somewhere around the area, and Fuji's whereabouts were a mystery.

"Fuji…where are you?" He mumbled.

_"Eiji! I'm over here."_

Kikumaru heard his classmate's voice. Straightening his legs, he glanced around frantically, trying to catch a glimpse of Fuji.

"Fuji?"

_"Over here Eiji!"_

"Where?"

_"Here, here!"_ Kikumaru swore he heard Fuji laughing. _"Over here Eiji, in front of you."_

Kikumaru looked straight ahead, squinting his eyes. He lifted up his right hand, shielding his eyes from the glaring sun. He saw a faint outline of a person standing at the edge of the pool. He squinted his eyes further, and the image got clearer and clearer as he focused on it.

The once blurry figure took shape and all Kikumaru saw was the light brown shoulder length hair of his friend, the smile forever etched on the prodigy's face.

Kikumaru slowly brought his hand down and he could feel liquid flow down his cheeks. He started to laugh, although it seemed more like a sob. Kikumaru laughed into his palm, becoming nearly hysterical.

He felt a hand stroke his hair and looked back up. This time, Fuji was standing beside him.

"Fuji…"

_"Hm?"_

"Everyone-" Kikumaru rubbed his eyes, and frowned when Fuji blurred for a moment. "-everyone's…gone…"

_"What do you mean Eiji?"_ Fuji laughed, throwing his head back.

"It's not funny Fuji! Oishi…Tezuka…Inui…O'chibi…they're all, they're all…gone!"

_"That's not true Eiji."_

Kikumaru stared at Fuji, shock written all over his face. Fuji kindly smiled, and repeated, _"That's not true Eiji. It's not."_

"Bu-but, I saw them Fuji! You were not there! I-I saw it!"

_"We're never gone Eiji. Look-"_ Fuji lifted up his right hand and pointed towards the direction of the pool. _"Everyone's there. We're all waiting for you Eiji."_

"Eh?" Kikumaru whipped his head around, but saw nothing. "Where?"

_"Look closer Eiji!"_ Fuji laughed again.

Kikumaru felt hands pushing on his back, and turned, noticing that Fuji was pushing him, telling him to get up from the chair. Kikumaru obediently listened, and stood up. He stumbled a little, as his legs gave way, but Fuji held him up.

_"Come on~"_

Fuji tugged on Kikumaru's wrist and steered him towards the pool. The two stopped at the edge and Kikumaru glanced around, still seeing nothing in particular besides a shimmering pool.

"Where are they?"

Fuji pointed into the pool. Kikumaru's gaze followed Fuji's finger and frowned.

"There's no one there Fuji."

Fuji shook his head and smiled.

_"EIJI!"_

Kikumaru widened his eyes. _'Oishi?'_

"OISHI?" Kikumaru called out, his eyes darting around, trying to catch a glimpse of his partner.

_"Where are you looking at Eiji? We're all down here!"_

Kikumaru looked at Fuji in confusion. The prodigy only pointed into the pool.

_"Mada mada dane, Kikumaru-senpai."_

"O'chibi?"

Kikumaru looked into the pool, squatting down at the edge. Suddenly, the surface of the pool started to change. More outlines of people appeared, and the pool surface quivered.

_"Eiji. You've finally noticed us." _

Kikumaru saw Oishi, and he smiled.

"Oishiiii! I thought-I thought you were gone forever!" Kikumaru cried out.

_"What are you saying Eiji. We're the golden pair aren't we? We will never separate from each other. We'll always be together, won't we?"_

"…That's true, nya."

_"So Eiji, smile, we're all here with you. You are never alone."_

"What are you saying Oishi!" Kikumaru laughed. "I'm smiling aren't I?"

_"Eiji-senpai! Let's go out for some burgers! Senpai will treat right?"_

"Momo! I'm broke because of you!"

Momoshiro let out a large grin and Kikumaru chuckled.

_"Fshh…have you got no shame, stupid peach. Asking senpai to treat you like that…"_

_"HUH?! What did you say damn viper! Want to repeat that huh?!"_

_"Eh, eh, Momo! Kaidoh! Stop it!"_

_"Probability that Kawamura would be able to stop Momoshiro and Kaidoh is 0%."_

Kikumaru continued laughing. It felt so good to see all of his teammates again. It was as if the past few days didn't happen, and they were back in school, safe and sound.

_"Eiji, come here! Come with us!"_

Kikumaru looked at Oishi, and then turned to Fuji, who nodded. Kikumaru faced Oishi again and smiled, "Mm!"

Oishi opened up his arms, as if telling Kikumaru to jump into the receiving arms. And Kikumaru did. He jumped with a huge smile on his face, saying, "Oishiii!", before his words got swallowed up in the water.

The last thing Kikumaru ever heard was Tezuka saying his catchphrase, _"You've let your guard down, Kikumaru."_

* * *

"Whoa. What just happened?" A hooded male lying flat on his stomach on the roof of the mansion said. He looked down at the pool area and laughed. "Was that guy off his rocker or something? How much of rebels are they if they took drugs in middle school! HAH!"

He was laughing so hysterically that he had to clamp his palm over his mouth to muffle his chuckles.

"Well, at least that was interesting," The man said to himself after calming down. "I didn't even have to do anything."

He then rolled over onto his back and frowned when the glaring sun hurt his eyes.

A sudden thought ran through his head and he frowned yet again.

"I wonder if missy will like that…" He muttered.

Plucking his handheld transceiver from his pocket, he pressed a button and spoke into it, "Princess? There's a slight problem. Over."

Sighing, he dropped his hands down to his side and waited for a reply.

He waited, and waited.

Pushing himself up into a sitting position, he spoke into the transceiver again.

"Hello? Princess, you there? Over."

A minute passed, and there was still no reply.

"Oh shit." The man swore under his breath, before digging through his pockets for a buzzer.

The male quickly pulled it out of his pocket, juggling it in his hand for a little while when it threatened to drop from his grip, and pressed the button frantically. He didn't know how many times he pushed the button, but he was frantic and he didn't know what would happen if the message didn't manage to go through. Although, one thing he knew was that he would get cussed at for buzzing the other party so many times.

When he thought that it was enough, he dropped the buzzer down onto the roof tiles and placed his palms on his eyes.

"Don't get caught princess…" He whispered, and a light breeze blew past, carrying his words away.

* * *

Marui did not manage to get a wink of sleep the previous night. All he did was sit in the corner of the room, looking like a lifeless rag doll, reflecting. Yes, he was reflecting. Reflecting on what? Reflecting on his actions, his words. _Those_ words that caused him to lose a dear friend.

He was finally alone, and could drop that bubbly façade of his that he had put on in front of the others, just so that they would think that he was fine. How could he be fine? He could never forgive himself for doing such a thing.

It was a habit, Marui knew that. He had always forced the most tedious tasks onto Jackal, without listening to the Brazilian's protests. There never was anything to worry about. It wasn't a matter of life and death. Except, on that one day, it was.

Marui's ears twitched slightly at a soft sound. Marui looked around, and noticed that the door was ajar. Marui stared at the gap.

_'Didn't I shut the door tightly?'_

Marui continued to stare. Then, the door opened a little wider. Marui could see a small part of the hallway.

"Haru, if this is some sort of a pr-" Marui cut himself off when a girl appeared in the gap.

Marui's mind must not have been functioning properly at that moment, because he didn't think of it as strange that a random stranger just let herself into the room. A stranger in a mansion which they had thoroughly searched through.

"Onii-chan, why are you sad?" The girl tilted her head to the side, her footsteps light as she made her way towards the empty bed.

Marui just watched her, as she sat down comfortably onto the soft mattress. Her dress white, hair cascading down her back, a stuffed rabbit clutched against her body. She looked no older than Echizen, her body petite and she still had some baby features on her face. She started humming and swinging her legs in the air.

Then, Marui remembered that she had asked him a question.

"What do you mean?" He faked a smile. "I'm not sad."

The girl stopped humming. The room became deadly quiet. Then, she stilled her legs. Slowly, she turned to face Marui and said, "Onii-chan, you're lying. Lying is no good. Watano-nii-chan told me that."

Marui kept his smile on his face and remained silent.

"Onii-chan's smile is weird." She went on.

Marui dropped his smile.

"How is it weird?"

The girl placed a finger on a chin, as if thinking. "Onii-chan's mouth was smiling, but his eyes weren't."

It was strange how a young girl could spot what his teammates couldn't.

"You see…Onii-chan here has done something very bad." Marui hung his head down. Why was he telling a random stranger something he couldn't even confide with his friends? Marui didn't know. But, he felt that it was something he should do.

"Hm? What bad thing?"

"Onii-chan has-" Marui placed his hands on his forehead, pushing his bangs up. "-stolen something from someone."

"Stolen?" The girl tilted her head to the side, as if confused. "Stealing is no good."

Marui let out a chuckle. "You're right."

"Why don't Onii-chan just return it?"

Marui let the words sink in. He then lifted up his head and looked into the girl's eyes.

"I'm afraid…that's impossible."

"Why not?"

"That's not something I can return. No one can."

"I don't get it." The girl frowned. "Why is there something Onii-chan cannot return? If you can take it, you can return it. Right?"

Marui looked up at the ceiling. "If I can just return it…maybe then I might be able to forgive myself."

"Mm…" The girl mused. Suddenly, she jumped up onto the bed and placed a fist on her chest, her stuffed rabbit falling down onto the mattress beside her. Marui, shocked by the sudden movement, blinked as he observed the girl. "I will help Onii-chan return the thing that he stolen!"

Marui opened his mouth, but closed it again without uttering a single sound. He looked at the girl's determined expression on her face and couldn't resist smiling. A real smile.

The girl looked at Marui and dropped her fist that was on her chest down to her side, plopping down cross-legged on the bed. She picked up her stuffed rabbit and hugged it tightly.

"Onii-chan's smiling." She said.

Marui brought a hand up to his face, and true enough, he was smiling.

"Yes…I'm smiling…" Marui brought his hand down and stared at it. He heard laughter and looked up.

"Onii-chan's funny!"

The girl's cheerful behaviour seemed contagious, as Marui couldn't resist laughing along with her.

Pulling out a piece of gum from his pocket, Marui stood up and walked over to the bed, sitting down beside the girl. The girl stopped laughing and looked at him curiously.

Taking hold on the girl's right wrist, he placed the gum onto her hand and winked, "Present for cheering me up."

The girl smiled a toothy smile, before exclaiming, "Thank you Onii-chan!"

Marui ruffled her hair and he felt as if one of his younger brothers was the one in front of him. He was always ruffling their hair when he was at home.

Suddenly, a panting Taki appeared at the doorway. The girl, noticing Taki, jumped off the bed before Marui could even react and ran towards the door. Marui sat on the mattress dumbfounded. Taki grabbed the girl by the wrist and shot a look – that Marui couldn't decipher – at Marui. As Marui was distracted by Taki's look at him, he didn't notice the girl smiling as she looked at the piece of gum in her palm.

Then, the young butler and the girl were gone. As if they had never been there in the first place.

It was only until there was a lack of their presence did Marui realize that something was amiss.

Why was there a girl in the mansion?

Marui looked at his hand, the one he used to ruffle the girl's hair, and then back at the opened door.

What in the world…?

* * *

**A/N: I...am so tired. I spent 7 hours doing Maths homework. 7 hours. Yes.  
Did I just eliminate Seigaku (except for Fuji)? Yes. Yes I did.  
**


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: I do not own PoT.**

* * *

**Chapter 12**

_'Hold up! Wait. What? Girl, mansion, Taki, mansion, girl.'_

Marui was so confused. It took him a few minutes before he could sort out his thoughts.

_'Strange girl in mansion! And Taki!'_

Marui quickly jumped off the bed and made a beeline for the room next door, which was Niou's. Marui banged on the door with such force, as if his life depended on it.

"HARU! OPEN UP THE DAMN DOOR! I know you're in there!"

Marui continued to pound on the wooden structure, screaming for Niou to quickly open it already and not to take his own sweet time, because he had something important to tell the silver head.

"Whoa," Niou muttered, avoiding a fist in his face.

"Just now, there was this one girl that suddenly entered my room and all, and she started to talk to me. I know it was stupid, that I didn't think about it, and then she left and then-"

"Bunta, calm down. I don't understand what you're saying." Niou held his hands up in front of his face.

Marui closed his mouth and took a few breaths, waiting for Niou to signal to him to continue.

"Repeat that, with more details now."

Marui waved his arms around in the air frantically. "No! You don't get it! There's no time! Come on! We need to find Yukimura and Yanagi!"

Marui quickly grabbed Niou's hand and dragged him down the hallways, ignoring Niou's protests.

"Seriously Bunta, what the hell's the hurry? Did something happen?"

"There's someone else in this mansion. I don't think she's the one behind all of this but it's still weird! Yanagi should know what's going on, we're going to tell the rest."

"Someone else? _She?_" Niou was confused. "What the heck Bunta, are you hallucinating? We've all searched this mansion, there's no one else except for us!"

Marui stopped and spun around, still keeping a death grip on Niou's wrist. "I know that! I don't know why that girl was here, but she was. I'm not hallucinating Haru! I _touched_ her. Do you think that I can touch anything that my supposedly _delusional_ mind made up?"

Marui made a move to continue walking but Niou stopped him. "Who did you see? Tell me from the beginning."

Marui groaned. "Can we continue walking?"

Niou paused, thinking, before nodding and Marui started dragging him again. "I saw this girl. I don't know her name, but she looked no older than 12. She just suddenly entered my room just now and-"

Marui stopped mid-sentence when he felt something prick the back of his neck. Releasing his hold on Niou's wrist, Marui frowned and rubbed his neck. All of a sudden, he started to feel heavy-eyed. Slowly turning around, Marui staggered a little and he felt Niou's hands on his shoulders.

"Bunta? Bun…, what's…problem…"

He tried to shake his head to wake himself up but found that his whole body was heavy. He could barely move. He couldn't even hear what Niou was saying, even though he could roughly see the silver head's mouth moving.

"Har-" Marui tried to call out, and then he felt himself falling down hard on the, fortunately, soft carpet.

Niou struggled to peel the arm that was around his neck off his neck. He had been holding Marui up, and screaming into the red head's face trying to get a response from him, when that dreaded arm circled around his neck and pulled him away. Gritting his teeth, Niou thrashed around uselessly and noticed that he had dropped Marui down onto the floor.

_'Dammit.'_

A new idea formed in Niou's mind and instead of trying to pull away, he _tried_ to claw on the arm. Emphasize on tried. Unfortunately for Niou, he wasn't a girl, and didn't have long fingernails which _hurt_ when they happened to accidentally scratch you. So, clawing on the arm didn't really help, plus, the attacker was wearing long sleeves.

He'd probably have a better chance attempting to kick the man – Niou could tell that he was a male due to the lack of boobs pressing against his back – where men would feel the most pain. He took back the thought when he realized that he would make himself feel the pain as well. (Honestly, your safety comes first Niou.)

So, due to the lack of better ideas, Niou continued to uselessly claw at the guy, digging his fingernails into soft fabric. He felt the arm tighten around his neck and coughed, gasping for air, his hands dropping down to his side, as the lack of oxygen made his whole body feel like jelly.

"Don't kill him," Niou heard a voice which he reckoned that he had heard before, somewhere.

Black dots started to appear in Niou's vision but they vanished as quickly as they appeared when oxygen filled his lungs once again. Niou dropped down onto his knees and hands, coughing, when the man released him.

Niou brought his left hand up to his throat and tried to assess the situation but a large palm kept his head down, and Niou had to slam his left hand back down onto the carpet. All Niou could see was the carpet. He could even see the tiniest specks of dust, his face was that close to the carpet.

"Why not?" Another voice asked, and Niou guesses that it was probably the guy who was trying to kill him earlier.

"Princess said to get that guy, not to kill someone else."

_'Get what guy?'_

Was it him, or Marui?

But this was new information, and Niou tried to keep an ear on their conversation.

"Tch, you're no fun."

"She's not happy with what happened at the pool."

Niou heard a forced chuckle. "Oi oi, that wasn't my fault."

There was a sigh. "Just get him and go already."

"Can I at least beat this guy up?" Niou felt a tug on his hair and winced, swearing that a few strands of hair had been ripped out.

"Whatever, just don't kill him."

"Roger…"

And then, Niou felt himself being thrown against a wall, hitting his head hard against the unforgiving surface. Niou blinked a few times, trying to clear his vision, which blurred after the strong impact. A hooded male suddenly appeared right in front of his face. There was no sign of the other man. Just this one psycho hooded guy who had intended on killing Niou.

_'Oh damn.'_

Niou received three punches in the gut and tried to curl up, lying on his side on the floor, using his hands to protect his stomach area. But the man just kicked him, to Niou, it felt as if the man's shoes had metal plating on the front. It probably did.

Niou tasted blood in his mouth, probably having bitten his tongue while trying to suppress screams. He didn't know how long it lasted, but through blurry vision – his eyes were filled with tears due to the pain – he noticed the man leaving his side, finally satisfied, and picking Marui off the ground, slinging the red head over his shoulder.

_'BUNTA!'_

Niou struggled to stand. But all he could do was twitch his fingers, his body wouldn't move the way he wanted it to. Feeling pathetic, lying on the carpet in pain, all Niou could do was watch Marui and the man get smaller and smaller, before the man turned around the corner, disappearing from sight.

Then, Niou blacked out.

* * *

Atobe lifted up his head when the doors to the recreation room swung open for the second time that afternoon.

"Huhhh? I thought the _Kings_ Rikkai didn't want to hang around with the _targeted_ Hyoutei?" Mukahi and Shishido sneered.

Standing at the doorway was a frowning Sanada, his arms crossed against his chest. Yukimura emerged from behind his vice-captain and glared at the two before diverting his attention to Atobe.

"Can we come in?"

Atobe shrugged, not seeing a need to reply. Yukimura walked in, holding his head high with Sanada and Yanagi following close behind him. Kirihara was clinging onto Yukimura's arm as they walked. Yagyuu entered not long after, with Niou draped on his back. The silver head's hair was tinted red on the back, and Atobe frowned.

Yagyuu placed Niou down on an empty couch and Sanada asked, "What happened to Niou and Marui, Atobe?"

"Marui-kun?" Jirou perked up at his idol's name.

Atobe narrowed his eyes at the Rikkaidai vice-captain and the two began a glaring contest.

"How should ore-sama know?" Atobe growled.

"I thought Atobe-kun knew everything," Yagyuu suddenly said, pushing his glasses up, making it shine in the light. It was really out of his character to say such a remark and Ootori dropped the table-tennis bat that he was holding.

Atobe didn't respond to Yagyuu's statement. Normally he would send a death glare at the gentleman, but Atobe was currently in the middle of a glaring competition with Sanada and he didn't want to lose.

"Sanada, stop it," Yukimura ordered, and Sanada blinked, tugging his cap down.

Atobe nearly let out a smirk but restrained himself, not wanting to seem childish in front of the others.

"What's the problem?" Oshitari came over, leaning against the back of the couch.

"We found Niou in the middle of the hallway unconscious," Yanagi explained.

Oshitari glanced over at the trickster and made a low sound, as if understanding. "Then, what about Marui?"

"No trace of him anywhere. We searched his room, Niou's room, and the level that our rooms were on."

Oshitari raised his eyebrows at that.

"So, a random disappearance like Fuji?"

"There's a probability of 79% that the person behind this was the same person responsible for Fuji's disappearance." There was a pause. "That is…if he is working alone."

No one questioned Yanagi's last few words.

There was a groan. Yagyuu turned around to see Niou sitting up, gingerly placing a finger on the back of his head before hissing loudly.

"Oh, Niou-kun, you're up-"

"There were two guys," Niou's face was stern.

Yanagi opened up Inui's notebook before moving his head in an incomprehensible nod.

"Are you sure Niou?" Yukimura asked, moving forwards, sitting down next to the trickster.

"I heard two voices. I'm sure of it."

"Did you see their faces?" Yanagi asked, ready to take in more information.

Niou would have shook his head, but it was throbbing so much that he just answered with a low, "No." Argh, he had a killer headache going on. Then, he remembered something important.

"They took Bunta."

"What?"

"One of them told the other, "Princess said to get that guy" I didn't know who they were talking about at first, but I saw this man take Bunta before I blacked out."

"Princess…did they say who she might be?" Yanagi questioned.

"No, but Bunta told me before we got attacked that a girl entered his room."

"When?"

"Just before he told me, apparently. We were on our way to tell you about it before, well, yeah," Niou clenched his fists together and leant forwards, biting his bottom lip. "Dammit! If only I had listened to him and not stopped him when he tried to tell me!"

Yukimura turned to Yanagi, gesturing for the data player to inform him about his thoughts on the matter.

"From what Niou told us, there is a 100% probability that the 'girl' is the leader in this whole thing. Also, there's a minimum of three people involved in the attacks, two males and one female. I do not know the reason why they took Marui and only left Niou unconscious after all the previous deaths."

"One guy tried to kill me," Niou suddenly injected.

"What did you say?" Atobe asked, intensively listening to the story.

"One of them tried to kill me, but the other appeared and told him not to kill me."

"Why?"

Niou shrugged. "I think they listen to that _Princess's_ orders. Apparently she didn't order them to kill anyone, only to take Bunta."

"Thus, the 100% probability that the Princess is the one in charge of this whole thing," Yanagi repeated.

Taki approached Niou, holding a wet towel. "Here you go," he said, handing it over to the trickster.

Something clicked in Niou's mind, and he eyed the young butler skeptically, receiving the towel with a soft, "thanks." He watched as Taki walked away, hiding back in the shadows of the room, and placed the towel to the back of his head, where blood was beginning to clot. Unfortunately for Niou, he did not have the ability to see the back of his head and wondered if he was just dabbing at the wound uselessly. Yagyuu, noticing Niou's struggle, plucked the towel from Niou's hand and cleaned the wound for the silver head instead.

"Well, that's jolly and all now that we have a rough idea on how many people are after us, but it still doesn't change the fact that we're in trouble," Oshitari said, moving around so that he could plop down on the couch next to Atobe, who was sitting in a position similar to the famous statue, _The Thinker_.

"Still no sign of anyone coming to bring us home Atobe?" Sanada grumbled.

Atobe looked up from his cell phones and suppressed the urge to roll his eyes at the cap wearing vice-captain. "Do you think ore-sama would still be sitting here if there was?"

Silence.

"You might need some stitches for this Niou-kun, what caused it?" Yagyuu's voice broke the silence, even though he was speaking softly.

"Man threw me at a wall," Niou replied, his blue eyes fierce.

"Atobe…" Jirou crawled over, and started poking Atobe in the ribs.

"What is it?"

"What about Marui-kun?"

Atobe squeezed his lips tightly together. Then, he slowly shook his head. It was a lost cause. If it was similar to Fuji's disappearance, they had no hopes of finding Marui.

"But At-" Jirou started to whine but Atobe silenced him with a glare.

"I think there are others more worried about him than they show Jirou," Atobe whispered, so that only Jirou could hear him. Atobe didn't look at Jirou when he said that, his eyes instead darting around, to all of the Rikkai regulars, acting like they hadn't lost another valuable player.

"Oh yeah, those guys said something about the pool," Niou said out of the blue, causing the Hyoutei regulars to give him curious looks.

"Oshitari, Mukahi, Shishido, Ootori, go to the pool and investigate," Atobe commanded, sending them off with a wave. Shishido was about to protest but Ootori grabbed the third year's arm and pulled him away.

* * *

_Bam!_

The door slammed open and Fuji looked up. He had his knees up to his chest, his back leaning against the wall. A hooded male entered, carrying a person over his shoulder. Fuji immediately recognized the colours of the Rikkaidai jersey and widened his eyes.

The man dumped the body down onto the floor beside the leg of the bed and bent down, plucking a handcuff from his pocket and cuffing both of Marui's hands together. Then, he left the room for a second, before reappearing, dragging a long piece of rope behind him on the floor and started to tie the red head around the waist, against the leg of the bed.

"What are you doing?" Fuji asked. He didn't move from his position, and only stared at the male.

The hooded male paused in his actions and slightly lifted up his head, eyeing Fuji, who was sitting on the mattress, and looked back down, tying a tight knot with the rope and stood up, brushing dust off his pants.

"You got him didn't you?" A female's voice came from the doorway, and Fuji saw the girl leaning against the side, blowing a large bubble from the gum that she was chewing on.

The male nodded and the girl pushed off the wall, walking towards the bed and squatted down. She brushed Marui's bangs away from his face and frowned.

"What did you do to him?" She narrowed her eyes at the male.

"Nothing," the male shrugged, folding his arms across his chest and placed his weight on his right leg, casually standing on the spot as if it was normal to be in a room with people who he have tied up.

"Don't you 'nothing' me," The girl snapped, straightening up and grabbed front of the male's top.

"His face is all black and blue! What the hell did you do?! Throw him against a wall?!" She pointed a finger at Marui, hissing through her teeth.

Fuji looked at Marui and back at the two kidnappers. They did not seem to remember that Fuji was there.

"I threw someone else at a wall alright," the male laughed, and continued when the girl tightened her grip, "Just a few accidental knocks against some stuff when I carried him here, no worries."

Fuji closed his eyes and listened to their conversation.

"You!" The girl said, before sighing. She released the man and stepped back.

The male continued to laugh and asked, "Why do you want him anyway? I thought you only wanted girly over there."

Normally, Fuji would have taken offense for that word but in this situation, he really couldn't be bothered. He would take being called 'girly' any day.

"N-none of your business," the girl turned red and stomped away.

The man chuckled and shoved his hands into his pockets, sauntering out of the room after the girl, "I guess that other guy looks pretty girly as well. You seem to have a thing for girly guys, princess~"

"SHUT UP!" Fuji heard the girl scream, and a crash, as if something was thrown against the wall and broke. "Get out of here already!"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it, princess~" The man taunted, before pulling the door shut, leaving Fuji alone with an unconscious red head.

Fuji waited for a few seconds in the silence before opening his eyes. He turned his head and looked at the strands of red hair poking out from the bottom of the bed and then towards the door.

_'Why is Marui here?'_ He hung his head down and looked at his handcuff. _'I hope that everyone else is fine.'_

* * *

"We found Kikumaru," Oshitari announced when the four Hyoutei players returned to the recreation room.

"Oh?"

"He's a goner," Mukahi said.

"That makes all of Seigaku," Yanagi suddenly said.

"Renji, what do you mean?" Sanada asked.

"I saw Kikumaru running out of Tezuka's room when I went to find Sadaharu. Sadaharu and Tezuka are already," Yanagi paused, and lifted up Inui's notebook.

"There's still Fuji."

"…yes, it would seem so," Yanagi said.

"Did you find anything there Oshitari?" Atobe asked, rubbing his temples.

"No, nothing."

"It would seem that the notes have stopped," Yanagi spoke up. "There were no notes when I found Tezuka and Inui," he explained.

"There goes the only thing that would link us back to the attackers," Atobe mused.

"It's not as if they helped us anyway," Hiyoshi said.

Yanagi took out the notes that he had taken from Tezuka from his pocket and looked at them. "I thought that it was a pattern…"

"Heh, maybe they just can't be bothered giving us any notes anymore," Kirihara laughed. "What's the point of communicating with your victims?"

The data master ignored Kirihara's statement and flipped through Inui's notebook, slipping the notes in between various pages.

"Dammit! If only we can just get out of here!" Shishido slammed his fist down on the table-tennis table and Ootori flinched.

Atobe closed his eyes and swallowed. That was probably everyone's wish.

* * *

"Gah, he made me forget to write the notes," the girl grumbled, as she played with a blade that she held in between two fingers, "that idiot, he couldn't even complete a mission well." Putting the blade down onto the table top, she crossed her legs and placed her elbows on the table, resting her head on her palms as she grinned at the painted black wall. "Well, whatever. Now that all of the troublesome meddlers are gone, Syuusuke is all mine…"

She threw her head back and crackled like a witch. Running her tongue between her teeth, she felt the stickiness of the gum and bit on it. Eyeing the camera beside her, she ran her fingers over the top of it and picked it up, slinging it over her shoulder. Standing up with a grunt, she blew a bubble from the gum and stretched her hands. Time to build up her collection and…

She grinned.

…Time to think of another plan…

* * *

**A/N: I have nothing much to say really. Just trying to think about what should happen next. Both Marui and Fuji are captured now. Yup...**

**Thanks for the reviews. I really love you all.**

**See you when I update again. Hopefully, soon? :D  
**


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: I do not own PoT.  
**

* * *

**Chapter 13  
**

Fuji's eyes followed the girl's every movement as she danced along the wall, humming under her breath. He knew that he wasn't going to like what the girl was doing. True enough, when the girl moved out of the way, Fuji wishes that he had never seen what he had seen.

_'It's not true! Inui? Tezuka?! Eiji?! How. How can this be?'_ He tried to convince himself, although failing to, that his friends were not what he thought they were. _'No…but even the rest…this can't be…'_

"You see darling?" The girl crackled. "All of your troublemaking friends are out of the way now. They won't ever get in the way of our relationship every again. Isn't that wonderful?" She started to crawl onto the mattress, closer towards Fuji and Fuji kicked his leg, pushing her off the bed. The girl landed on the hard concrete floor with an_ ompf._

"What are you doing darling?" Tears started to well in the girl's eyes and she clasped her hands over her chest. "You've never been so violent to me before, why are you doing this?"

_"Why are you doing this,"_ Fuji hissed.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, where Fuji could not reach, the girl's leg brushed against Marui's side and she replied, "Didn't I already tell you darling? Your _friends_ were getting in the way of us. I had to get rid of them. They're in the way of our love! Don't you get it?"

Fuji swallowed and asked, "Why is Marui here?"

"Marui?" she asked, confused. Then, she looked towards her right and saw the red head slumped down on the floor before nodding. "Oh…you mean him."

Twirling her finger in red strands of hair, she smiled creepily before saying, "Why? You ask."

She bent down and wrapped her arms around Marui's neck, burying her face in his hair. "Don't you worry darling, there's nothing to be jealous about…"

_'I'm not jealous, you witch!'_

"…he's kind isn't he? Like a great older brother…I wonder if he has younger siblings…" she licked her lips, and her eyes became stern, "no…I'll kill them! He's mine, all mine! I won't share!"

Then, she glanced back towards Fuji before giving him a bright smile. "You're my love, he's my brother. We're such a loving family aren't we?"

Fuji wanted to puke, Marui aside, he would never want to be part of a loony's family.

Standing up, the girl placed a finger on her chin while she eyed Fuji's feet. "You seem a little violent today darling…maybe I should…" Spinning on her heels, the girl twirled around and left, returning with another long rope. "Stay still darling," she mumbled and bent down.

Fuji trashed around on the bed, moving his feet away from the girl's hands. Frustrated, the girl straightened up and threw the rope down onto the floor, her eyes flashing dangerously. "I'm not going to hurt you, I'm just going to tie your legs up a bit," she said, her voice dripping with venom, a dark aura radiated from her body and Fuji immediately stilled his legs.

Satisfied with Fuji's reaction, the girl smiled and picked up the rope again, this time, successfully tying Fuji's legs together tightly. "This should stop your violent behaviour dear," she sighed, "I don't know why you're so irritated today, is there someone else? It is because someone else is hindering our relationship and you're frustrated?"

Fuji's eyes widened and he shook his head furiously. _'No! No! No!'_ He wanted to scream, anything to stop the girl's mind from wandering and leading to some crazy conclusion.

However, he was already too late, the girl didn't notice the way he shook his head and was muttering incomprehensible words under her breath. She started to pace around the room and Fuji croaked out, "No! I don't like anyone else, no one is interfering with us!"

It pained him to say such a lie, but if it could protect everyone else back in the mansion, Fuji would do anything.

"Look?" He faked a smile. "I-" he cringed, "-love you. I'm serious."

"No," the girl shook her head vigorously, covering her ears with her palms, "you're lying! You just want to protect him! Who is it?! I'm going to kill him! NO! I'm going to kill them all!" With that, she stomped out of the room and slammed the door shut.

Fuji looked at the door and his heart started to pound. _'What's going to happen now?'_

* * *

Growl.

Kirihara stared at the garbage bag full of can food.

"Akaya, are you hungry?" Yukimura asked, and looked at the others for approval, before digging through the garbage bag for a can of food. He passed it over to the younger boy and Kirihara mumbled, "thanks."

"Yukimura, pass some out as well, we're all hungry."

The blue haired youth nodded and handed out a few cans to the other tennis players.

"Ouch!" A cry of pain rang out and all of the tennis players' heads snapped up, frantically looking around the room.

"Choutarou?!" Shishido exclaimed, moving over to his doubles partner who was clutching his finger. "What's wrong? What happened? Are you alright?" he bombarded the second year with questions.

"No, it's nothing Shishido-san. I just accidentally cut myself on the edge of the can," Ootori reassured the older male and the other tennis players sighed in relief, before digging into their food.

Shishido felt his knees go weak and he supported himself on the younger boy, his head hanging down. "Choutarou, don't scare me like that, I thought that something horrible happened to you."

"Eh Shishido-san?" Ootori seemed confused by the change in Shishido's behaviour, and Atobe looked up, eyeing his doubles team curiously.

Shishido shook his head and started to rattle on like a bullet train on maximum speed, "After what have happened, I thought that you were…dammit. I shouldn't be thinking about that, but I can't help it, I'm sorry Choutarou, sorry to show you this side of me. I'm so weak. So weak. Argh. Why am I acting like that, I'm sorry."

Ootori looked majorly confused at that moment. Shishido was acting so strangely that he had no idea what to do. Shishido kept mumbling apologies and Ootori looked at his captain for help, pleading through his eyes.

"Shishido, what's wrong with you?" Atobe asked, and Shishido shook his head against Ootori's chest.

"He's probably getting affected by this whole situation," Yanagi explained. "I calculated that sooner or later, one of us would eventually start to lose it."

"Renji, don't say it like that," Sanada frowned. The data master was never so blunt, and it scared Sanada to see that even the normally composed Yanagi could change when placed in a different environment.

"I'm just saying the truth Genichirou," Yanagi replied, placing a spoonful of canned tuna into his mouth. On his lap was Inui's notebook, which never seemed to leave his side, just like how it never left Inui's side when said boy was still alive.

Yukimura watched the conversation between Sanada and Yanagi with a frown. Kirihara was oblivious to the change in his upperclassmen's character but Yagyuu and Niou nudged Yukimura slightly and the three of them started to whisper amongst themselves.

"And here I thought that Kikumaru was the only wimp around," Mukahi stated, rolling his eyes at Shishido.

"Mukahi!" Atobe whipped his head around and glared at the acrobat. Someone on his team was already breaking down, he could not afford to deal with a squabble between the broken-down-Shishido and the acrobat, if Shishido was even in the right mind to start an argument.

"What? I'm just stating facts." Mukahi shrugged.

Atobe narrowed his eyes and hissed, "Oshitari, control him."

"I'm not an object you know Atobe, you can't just 'control' someone because you said so, or tell someone else to 'control' that person. Just because you're the captain doesn't mean that you're in control of my life!" Mukahi ranted.

"I can kick you off the regulars," Atobe threatened.

"That is if I don't die before that," Mukahi snapped back, unfazed by Atobe's threat.

"Gakuto, listen to Atobe, he's right," Oshitari jumped in, and tugged on the acrobat's arm, pulling him away from the diva.

Mukahi shook Oshitari off and replied, "What? Atobe's always right! Oh really? Was he right about the time when he said that we would become number one in Japan? Was he?! HUH?"

Atobe was losing it. Shishido was on his right crying like a baby, Ootori was frantic and looking at him for help, Mukahi was on a devil's rant, and not even Oshitari could stop him. Jirou was oblivious like Kirihara but Hiyoshi seemed perfectly content with sitting in the middle of the whole chaos and Atobe was pretty certain that the second year was not as dense as Jirou nor Kirihara and wonders if he should fear that.

"SHUT UP! ALL OF YOU JUST SHUT UP!" Atobe jumped up, his can of food falling down onto the carpet, its contents flowing out, staining the expensive material. Taki flinched at the loud volume and took a step back, concealing himself even further in the shadows.

"Shishido, get a hold of yourself!" he commanded, pointing a finger at the brown haired boy. "Mukahi, shut your mouth and eat your food! Both of you are acting like idiots! What do you think you can do by ranting and crying? Will it help us? No!"

Atobe had his fists clenched tightly into balls, his fingernails dug into the skin of his palms. If it could be anymore dramatic, Atobe would probably be engulfed in fire and roaring like a bull or even a dragon.

"Atobe, how about you calm down for a bit?" Oshitari stood up, whispering into his captain's ear, as his eyes glanced around the room, watching the strange looks that were being shot towards Atobe from the rest of the tennis players.

"Like you can speak Atobe. You went psycho when Kabaji left us!" Mukahi yelled after a moment of silence.

.~.

_"Calm down?" Atobe was shaking. "You're telling ore-sama to calm down?!" He whipped his head around to stare coldly at Seigaku's captain. "Kabaji was just killed! Do you think that I would not be angry? Not to mention, three of YOUR precious regulars have died as well!" _

_"Plan? Hahahahaha!" Atobe laughed maniacally. "We don't even know what kind of weapons that freaking psychopath has. What the hell can we, middle schoolers, do?!" _

.~.

Atobe swallowed and sat down, rubbing his temples. "Ore-sama admits that he had been a little out of control, but it's different now."

"Oh really?" Mukahi sneered and laughed like a madman. "How so?"

"Atobe isn't spouting nonsense like you are right now Gakuto," Oshitari answered.

"You don't understand do you Yuushi?" Mukahi narrowed his eyes, "We're all doomed. Doomed I tell you!"

"Guys, please let's all just take a deep breath and compose ourselves." Yagyuu stood up and walked towards the Hyoutei regulars. "Everyone here is feeling a little down in the dumps and it's no one's fault."

"Well, you can't blame them for losing it," Yanagi mumbled, earning him a glare from Sanada. There was something really different about the Yanagi now, compared to the Yanagi before.

"Shut up! Trying to play all Mr. Nice Guy are we?" Mukahi lashed out but Yagyuu stood his ground.

"Mukahi's right, we're all doomed," Shishido cried out.

Clanging of metal could be heard as Kirihara dropped his can on the table top. "We're doomed?" He seemed stunned to hear those words.

"No, no, we're not Akaya, they're just thinking of the worst outcome, I'm sure we'll make it through this," Yukimura tried to reassure the younger boy, patting him on the back, and shot a look at Atobe, as if telling the diva, 'control your team right now or else'.

"Think of the positive, I'm sure someone will come and save us. We just have to wait till the time comes," Yagyuu continued, but his words only fell on death ears.

"Yukimura, don't give ore-sama that look."

"What?" Yukimura was shocked and paused in his motion.

"Just because your team isn't acting like a bunch of blabbering fools doesn't mean that you can look down on us."

Glares from Atobe's own team was shot at the diva after his statement.

"I don't mean-"

"Yukimura." Sanada shook his head and gestured to his captain to stop wasting his breath. The whole of Hyoutei was in disarray, none bothering to even listen to Yukimura's and Yagyuu's words.

"I'm leaving." Yanagi suddenly stood up, placing his empty can of tuna on the table top, his right hand clutching Inui's notebook.

"Where are you going?" Sanada asked sternly, his eyes never leaving the data master.

Yanagi glanced at Sanada for the briefest of moments, before staring off into blank space. "I see no point in staying here."

Sanada frowned and asked, "What do you mean?"

However, the data master didn't reply to Sanada's question, and left with a, "I'll be going now."

Niou, Sanada, and Yukimura stared at the wide doors in shock. Yagyuu was still trying to calm Hyoutei down, thus, didn't realize that the number of people left in the recreation room had decreased.

Yukimura stood up to give chase, but was held down by Kirihara who was gripping tightly onto his jersey. The younger boy was crying and Yukimura was at a lost. Sensing their captain's distress, Sanada and Niou made their way towards the wide doors, and peered outside, but the data master was no where in sight. The extravagantly decorated hallways were empty, similar to a ghost town. Niou was about to step outside but Sanada grabbed him by the arm, shaking his head.

"Renji could be anywhere, don't risk it."

There was a slight twitch of Niou's eyebrow. "Aren't you worried about Yanagi?"

Sanada glanced back at the disorganized Hyoutei, and at his own teammates in the recreation room, before facing Niou again. "There are priorities Niou." He then released his hold on Niou and walked back to where Yukimura and Kirihara was sitting at.

Niou slowly pulled the wide doors shut and leaned against the wooden doors. His eyes roamed around the room. If he had any change in emotion, he certainly didn't show it – his poker face working wonders.

Pushing off the doors, he dragged his feet over to Yagyuu and placed his left hand on the gentleman's shoulder. "Yagyuu," he dragged his doubles partner's name. "Don't bother about them."

"But Niou-kun-"

"Don't bother, they're not even listening to you."

Niou then pulled Yagyuu towards the other side of the room, where the other Rikkai regulars were.

* * *

The male watched from the shadows, his eyes flitting from person to person as they argued in front of him.

"Gakuto calm-"

"Get your hand off me Yuushi! I need to drill this into Atobe's big fat head or he won't get it!"

"What did you say Mukahi?!" Atobe growled.

"I'm saying what I'm saying, are you deaf or just plain stupid?"

"That's it! When we return, you're off the team!"

"Yeah right, _when_ we return…" Mukahi rolled his eyes. "Isn't that like _never_?"

"Gakuto, stop being like that."

"Shut up Yuushi!"

"Shishido-san!"

"I'm sorry Choutarou, everything's just a mess right now, I can't- I don't know what to do."

"…" Hiyoshi had already discarded his can of food and was now sitting silently on the couch staring off into the distance (or at least, to the wall on the other side of the room).

"Hiyoshi…why are they fighting?" Jirou asked as he tugged on the second year's sleeve, only to be given the cold shoulder.

The young butler in blood smeared clothes shifted his weight from one leg to another. Something stirred inside him as he watched on. Unable to take it any longer, he slipped out of the room unnoticed and pulled a device from his pocket.

Pressing on a few buttons and whispering a few words, the young butler shoved the device back into his pocket as he waited.

A strong gust of wind blew into the hallways as one of the windows opened. Another male jumped in and leaned against the wall on the opposite side of the hallway.

"What do you mean?" the newcomer asked.

"What are we doing really?"

"Huh?"

"Are we doing the right thing?" the young butler clenched his fists together.

The newcomer laughed like a super villain and said, "What on Earth are you saying?"

"I mean it!" Taki unclenched his fists and looked at the newcomer in the eye. "They are just middle schoolers. I…I can't do this."

In a split second, the newcomer was directly in front of Taki, the top of his butler's uniform was balled in the fist of the newcomer. "Are you backing out?" his warm breath hit Taki's face with every syllable. "Who are we doing this for again?" He shook the young butler and Taki shook his head.

"No! I…I just…"

The newcomer released his grip and Taki placed his palms on his eyes. "You should see it, it's horrible in there. I can't imagine what they're feeling."

"Who are we doing this for again?" the other male repeated. "Are you going to let her down?"

Taki removed his hands and slowly shook his head. "No, I'm not going to let her down. We promised didn't we?"

"Then get back in there and do your job."

"But I can't do that either," Taki whispered, looking down at the carpet.

"What do you wish to do then?"

"I…"

The next minute, the two disappeared from the hallways.

* * *

**A/N: This chapter isn't the best. But it's moving the storyline so I guess it's fine...? Sigh. I don't know what I'm feeling already.  
****By the way, is there still anyone left in the PoT fandom? Somehow it's dying...why? Come back people T_T**


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

Taki tugged on the collar of his uniform, fixing it, and slipped back into the room. The sounds of arguing still echoed in the room and Taki walked towards the side with the billiards and table tennis tables. He stayed there silently for a few seconds before he suddenly jerked and stepped back, hiding in the shadows.

The screams, the yells, the cursing, floated into Taki's ears and he closed his eyes. His right hand moved towards his side pocket and he felt the bulge of a device sitting in it. His left hand went up to his throat and he swallowed a few times, before reopening his eyes, a new look in them.

* * *

"I want you to get this person now." The girl pointed to a photo sticking on the wall. It was marked with a red cross.

"Get?"

The girl turned to face the male and her eyes narrowed for a millisecond, before going back to its original size. "What are you planning?"

"Eh?" he asked. "Nothing."

The girl took a step back and continued, "I don't care what you intend to do with this arrangement, just do as I ask."

The male gulped and nodded. "Do you have any requests?"

She paced around the room. "No, do as you wish."

He nodded and left in a jiffy. The girl stared at the spot where the man originally was and sat down on the swivel chair. Placing her legs up on the tabletop, she looked at the marked photo, before twisting her neck to look at the door leading to the other room, and a smirk crept up onto her face.

* * *

"What happened to Yanagi-kun?" Yagyuu asked.

Niou shoved his hands into his pockets and acted nonchalant. "He left."

"Left?" Even the normally nearly emotionless Yagyuu was surprised. "What do you mean?"

"He just left."

"Sanada-kun?" Yagyuu decided to ask the vice-captain, realising that he was not going to be able to squeeze any answers out of the trickster.

"It's as Niou said Yagyuu, Renji left."

Yagyuu quickly readjusted his glasses and asked, "Why?"

Sanada shook his head. "He didn't say."

"I wonder why Yanagi-kun did that…" Yagyuu muttered under his breath, as he sat down next to Niou.

Niou glanced from the corner of his eye at the young butler who was trying to conceal himself in the shadows, a frown appeared on the trickster's face.

* * *

"You know what?" Mukahi stood up furiously. "I can't stay here any longer. I'll see you all in hell."

"Gakuto!" Oshitari called after his doubles partner as Mukahi slammed the door shut with a loud _bang!_

"Leave that idiot alone Oshitari," Atobe said.

"But Atobe-"

"He can do whatever he wants," said Atobe, sternly.

Oshitari slouched down on the couch and his glasses shined as light fell on it. "Do you think Gakuto is right?"

"That we'll meet in hell?" Atobe replied. "Pft, ore-sama will not go to such a place like hell."

"I'm not joking Atobe," Oshitari's voice was void of emotions. "Do you really think that we'll return home safely?"

"Yes," Atobe's voice didn't waver. Oshitari looked at his captain before facing the front, at the yellow and black jerseys of the Rikkai regulars.

"You're lying."

Atobe seemed shocked as he stared at Oshitari. "What do you mean?"

"It's been a few days since we were meant to return, yet, there's still no sign of anyone looking for us."

Atobe leaned back, and placed his arms at the back of his head. "We can't let go of that little bit of hope that we have left Oshitari."

Oshitari looked at his teammates, analysing them. "I guess you're right."

"Ore-sama is always right."

The corners of Oshitari's mouth lifted up into a small smile.

* * *

Footsteps plodded on the thick carpet, the material suppressing the noises that those footsteps would create. In the male's right hand was a small pocketknife. He played with it as he walked down the hallways.

He felt a strong vibration against his left thigh and he paused in his motion, feeling into his pockets for the vibrating device. "Yes?"

"Your prey is walking around the mansion alone. I want you to make sure that the others know about his plight when you're done. I want to strike fear into their hearts for getting in between Syuusuke and me. Over."

The male squeezed the device in his hand tightly for a moment before he took in a deep breath, replying, "I get it. Over."

When he pocketed the device, the male looked at the dangerous object in his right hand before shutting his eyes. "Strike fear into their hearts…eh?" he muttered under his breath.

"_As if they haven't had enough fear and pain in them already…"_ Those words were lost in the vast mansion as the man continued on with the mission that was entrusted to him.

* * *

Mukahi sat on the top of the roof and felt the breeze brush against his face. The scene in front of him was so serene, that Mukahi couldn't help but wonder if it was just a calm before the storm. He had always enjoyed being on high places. Loving to jump as high as he could, taunting other tennis players, telling them to jump higher. If Mukahi could fly, he would. He would fly to the other side of the world, maybe even into outer space.

Mukahi laughed dryly. That sort of dream was too far-fetched to be possible.

Mukahi stood up and walked on the top of the roof, stopping when he could see the swimming pool below. Kikumaru, his number one rival, was in that pool below. He was finally on a higher level than Seigaku's acrobat (quite literally).

Hyoutei's acrobat laughed again. He then spun on his heels and left the scene. Mukahi spread his arms out as he walked, pretending that he was on a tightrope, stepping with each foot directly in front of the other. Mukahi pretended to sway whenever the wind blew.

After he got to about 200 metres away, Mukahi gave up and plopped back down onto the roof tiles. He laid on his back as he looked up at the sky.

The quiet surroundings was suddenly disturbed by footsteps plodding on the roof tiles beside him. Mukahi quickly sat up straight and saw a man, dressed fully in black, with a hood covering his face.

"I never expected you to be up here," the male said. "I thought that you'd still be arguing with the others below."

Mukahi lifted up his hand, palm facing upwards, as if he was collecting invisible raindrops. "So, it's my turn now I see…" Mukahi said, a distorted grin appearing on his face.

"You seem prepared," the male remarked, stepping closer.

Mukahi shifted his gaze, so that he was looking at the tiles instead of the man. "What makes you say that?"

"You're not asking me for my identity."

"Even if I did, it wouldn't be of any use," Mukahi answered. "Although…"

The male tilted his head to the side.

"After you kill me, tell Atobe, "I told you so". That's all I ask."

The male didn't reply.

Mukahi slowly stood up, and walked closer to the edge of the roof. The male's eyes followed his every movement. Mukahi looked up at the sky one last time and continued, "That is, if I let you kill me before I do it myself."

Before the male could react, Mukahi jumped off the roof.

A strong gust of wind blew past and the man's walked swiftly towards the spot where Mukahi was just a few seconds ago. He peered down and shut his eyes slowly. The pocketknife that was in between his fingers fell down onto the roof tiles with a _clang!_

'_Strike fear into their hearts.'_

That sentence replayed itself over and over again in the man's mind, as he bent down to pick up the fallen object. From the roof, the male snapped a picture of the sky and another one of Mukahi lying below. When the photos were ready, the male sat down on the roof, away from the edge and uncapped a black permanent marker. He turned the photos over and started to write a few words on them.

When he was done, he read the words that he had written a few times before tucking them into his back pocket.

A crow cawed as the man left the scene.

* * *

_Knock. Knock._

The room became silent at the sound of knocking on the door. The tennis players swore that they could hear each of them breathing, if they even were, as some held their breaths.

"Could it be Yanagi-senpai?" Kirihara whispered, his grip on Yukimura's arm tightened.

Yukimura stared at the door before replying, "No, I don't think it is. Renji would just enter without knocking."

"Then who?" Sanada furrowed his eyebrows.

'_Gakuto,'_ Oshitari thought, his mouth in a grim line.

Atobe gestured to Taki to open the door and the young butler slowly inched his way there. When Taki's fingers circled the handle, almost everyone had stopped breathing and Taki slowly opened one side of the wide doors. The tennis players let out a deep breath when they heard no gunshots being fired and no screams of terror from the young butler.

Taki poked his head out of the room and glanced left and right, before turning to face Atobe. "Keigo-sama, there's no one out there."

"Ahn~?" Atobe moved his hand to his face, similar to the posture he did whenever he used his insight. "What do you mean?"

"There's no one out here Keigo-sama," Taki repeated. The young butler looked back outside and something caught his eye. He squatted down and picked up an envelope that was on the carpet. "Keigo-sama, there's something here."

"What is it?"

Taki pulled the door shut and walked over to Atobe. He handed the envelope over and stepped back. Atobe turned the brown envelope over and raised an eyebrow. Nothing was written on the envelope, and it was so thin, that it seemed as though there was absolutely nothing inside.

"It's not a bomb is it?"

"It doesn't seem to be." Atobe narrowed his eyes. "It's far too thin."

"Where's Yanagi when you need him?" Niou muttered under his breath.

"Atobe, open it."

The diva nodded and peeled open the seal. He took a peek at the contents inside and reached his hand in, pulling them out. Atobe laughed.

"Oshitari," he said. "Do you think Mukahi will tell me "I told you so?""

"Depends."

"If he could, he probably would." Atobe tossed the photos over onto Oshitari's lap.

"Gakuto…" the blue haired male muttered under his breath.

Sanada stood up and walked over to Atobe. "What is it?"

"It's Mukahi this time," Atobe replied, covering his eyes with his hands.

"What about Renji?" Sanada asked.

"No clue."

Sanada turned to look at his teammates and nodded slightly. Yukimura looked relieved for a moment. No news was good news, was what they thought.

"Mukahi always loved being close to the sky," Oshitari choked out. "That idiot…"

Atobe turned to look at Oshitari and furrowed his eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

"You didn't notice this did you, Atobe?" Oshitari passed the photos back to the diva.

"Atobe-san, what about Mukahi-san?" Ootori asked worriedly. Shishido had calmed down for now and was sitting lifelessly, not a single sound emerged from his mouth. Jirou poked Shishido in the sides, yet, there was still no response.

"He's with Kabaji now."

"No way," Ootori gasped. "But why?"

Atobe ignored Ootori's question and read the words written on the back of the photos.

"He wanted to fly, to be free, but that sort of dream is impossible. His foolishness led to his destruction. You better watch your backs, because, your time is running out."

"That's a warning isn't it?"

"Yeah, much like the second note that we received."

"Come to think about it, where are the previous notes?" Sanada asked.

"Renji has them," Yukimura replied.

"This really would be the best time for Gakuto to say, "I told you so", wouldn't it?" Oshitari said, rubbing his eyes.

"Wait, there's more here." Atobe looked at the back of the photo of the sky. "This is for him, so that he can be where he wished to be. I'm sorry that I couldn't save him."

No one noticed how Taki's expression switched to a frown after Atobe read those sentences out loud.

"Doesn't this seem…different?" Ootori asked.

"Yes, it certainly doesn't seem like what a cold blooded murderer would write…"

"What could this mean?" Yukimura wondered.

"Ore-sama doesn't know." Atobe stood up. "However, ore-sama thinks that this means that there is more hope for us now."

All of the remaining tennis players' faces lit up at Atobe's declaration. Unbeknownst to them, Taki's hands were clenched tightly into fists, his nails digging into his palms, as he tried to hide his anger.

* * *

"You did something unnecessary didn't you?"

The male had his head hung down as he muttered apologies.

"Well whatever." The girl pushed off the swivel chair. "Your job is to make sure my darlings don't escape, I'll take care of the rest with him."

"No!" the male protested. The girl narrowed her eyes and growled.

"Are you saying that you can do a better job next time?" she said as she circled him. "I clearly told you to strike fear into their hearts, but what did you do? You gave them more hope! Hope that obviously doesn't exist!"

The male took in a deep breath and swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. "I will do a better job next time, I swear on it. I won't let you down."

She eyed him for a few seconds before walking back to the swivel chair. "Okay, one more try then. If you do anything funny…"

"I won't!"

She then scrutinized his body language before leaning back in her chair. She picked up a red marker on the table and shot it like a dart to a photo on the wall. The one earlier that day was already taken down.

"It's his turn now."

The male hesitated for a second before replying, "I got it."

"Do your worse."

"Roger."

The girl let out a mad man's laugh, which passed through the door at the side, into Fuji's ears.

* * *

Fuji cringed at the sound and clamped his hands over his ears. The handcuff clanged against metal when he moved.

At the bottom of the bed, Marui stirred.

The red head shook his head a few times, ridding his blurred vision and observed his surroundings. "Where…am I?"

"Marui, you're awake," Fuji said, removing his hands as the laughter ceased.

"Fuji?!" Marui quickly snapped his head over to Fuji's direction when he heard the other boy's voice. "You're alive!"

"Yes…I am…" Fuji mumbled.

"Where are we? Why am I tied up? What happened to 'Haru?" Marui rambled on.

Fuji waved his left hand, gesturing for the red head to keep quiet. "I don't know. I don't even know if we're in Atobe's villa or not."

"We're definitely not in the mansion." Marui shook his head.

"Eh?"

"We searched the whole mansion for you after you disappeared, we didn't find anything."

Fuji frowned. "But I heard Tezuka's, Atobe's and Yukimura's voices a few days ago."

"What?"

"I don't know, I couldn't hear much, but I'm pretty sure that it was their voices."

"No, that's not possible, Tezuka, Atobe and Yukimura-buchou never left the mansion."

"But-"

"More importantly, why are we here?"

Fuji sighed. "It's a long story…even I don't really get it myself."

Marui turned his head back to his front. "I'll just listen like this, my neck hurts trying to look up at you."

"Remember when I said that I had met a girl who told me about a bloodbath before the camp started?"

"Yeah."

"She's the one behind this."

"What?" Marui was shocked.

"She's like a stalker. She's completely delusional. In her mind, I'm her lover or something, and she's killing all of our friends because she thinks that they are getting in the way of our non-existent romance."

Marui gritted his teeth together. "That doesn't explain why I'm here though."

"She told me that you're like her older brother."

"What?"

"That's all she said, that you were kind, like an older brother."

"But I don't even know who you're talking about!" Marui's eyes widened. "Wait. Don't tell me. No, it can't be."

"What is it Marui?"

"When I was in my room, this girl suddenly entered. I can't believe I never thought much about it until she left. How could there be a girl in a mansion that we've thoroughly searched through? But she doesn't seem like the type to be the mastermind behind this! She looks like she's no older than 12!"

"It's her," Fuji replied. "You'll find out when she comes in."

"Oh?" The door creaked open. "You know me so well darling."

Fuji averted his eyes.

"You're awake Onii-chan," she said, licking her lips. Marui trembled as he gaped at the girl.

"It…is her…"

"I told you," Fuji muttered.

"What did you do to 'Haru?!" Marui yelled, as he tried to get out of the ropes. The girl raised her eyebrow, "'Haru?"

Suddenly, she snapped her fingers and went into the adjacent room, returning with a photo in her hands. "You mean him?" She pointed to the silver haired male in the photo.

Looking at Marui's expression told her that she was right. "He's alive…for now."

"What do you mean?"

"I'll get rid of every, single, one of them." She tossed the photo behind her back. "It seems that one of them is still getting in my way of my love with Syuusuke. So, I'll get rid of them once and for all. That way, there will be absolutely no one hindering our relationship!"

Marui twisted his neck so fast to look at Fuji, who had his head hung down.

"I'll see you soon, Onii-chan, Syuusuke," the girl said, pulling the door shut.

The room was silent, until Marui said, "It's as if she's a different person, but it's undeniably her, unless she has an identical twin that is her complete opposite."

"We have to get out of here and save everyone."

"But…how are we going to do that?"

"I don't know…"

Marui looked down at the ground. "Why is this happening?" he muttered under his breath.

* * *

**A/N: I will complete this story, I won't discontinue it. I probably wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I do. Thanks for reviewing.**


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

A girl tapped her fingers on the wooden table in a rhythmic pattern. She scanned the wall and chewed on the cap of the red marker.

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

Her eyes roamed over the glossy photos.

_Tap. Ta-_

The tapping suddenly stopped. A loud _bang_ could be heard as the girl slammed her palm on the tabletop. She jumped up onto the tabletop and scratched a large red cross on a particular photograph. Climbing down slowly, she chewed on the cap of the marker again, tapping her chin with her index finger.

'_He shall be next,'_ she thought. '_No, it's not a job for that guy. This shall be an execution that only I can perform.'_

A demonic smirk crept up onto her face, her eyes cold as she looked at the marked photograph.

'_Be honoured, Kirihara Akaya…'_

* * *

_Click_.

The male laid down on his stomach on a tree branch and set up his weapon. It was dark out, the sun having recently set down the horizon. Directly in front of him was a large window, light illuminated from the inside. No one could see him, even though he was right there, he was well camouflaged in the dark.

He could hear his heart thumping loudly in his chest. He could hear his own laboured breaths as he peered through the microscope, finger resting on the trigger of the sniping rifle. His finger was trembling as he waited for the right timing.

His target was probably the sweetest one there, yet, with his own hands, he would have to be the one to end his life. The male wanted to escape from it all, just run away, but no, he had already made a promise.

For her, he would do it.

A bee buzzed past his ear, but the male paid it no mind. He concentrated on the sound of his breaths, the thumping of his heart, and the target in front of him.

It was now or never.

His eyes never leaving the scope, the male pulled the trigger, and a loud _bang_ erupted. Birds disturbed from their rest flew out of trees and the male quickly packed up his belongings, slung the rifle over his shoulder and swung down. He hung on the tree branch as if he was on a monkey bar and swung his legs backwards and forwards, gaining momentum, before letting his hands go, landing nicely on his feet at the bottom. He then scrambled away.

* * *

Shishido jumped off the couch in terror, brought his hands up to his cheeks and yelled like a mental patient having a mental breakdown. He couldn't even yell out logical and understandable words, just a bunch of gibberish escaped his mouth.

"Shishido!" Atobe screamed.

"What the hell is this!" someone, probably Kirihara, exclaimed. In the midst of the chaos, no one could be so sure who was speaking what.

Hiyoshi was, however, still sitting comfortably, the stench of blood not seeming to bother him. Atobe felt more fear than he should just looking at the second year. Shishido shook his head vigorously and his cap floated down onto the carpet. Shishido then turned his back on the horrific scene and bolted out of the room.

"Shishido!" Atobe yelled yet again, reaching his hand out in a feeble attempt to stop the third year.

"Ootori?" Oshitari's voice made its way into Atobe's ear. "Ootori? Are you alright?"

"How is he alright?!"

"Ootori? Answer me!" Oshitari shook the second year.

"Oshitari-kun, you might not want to shake him, you might cause more damage."

Sanada ran over to the window and pushed them wide open, careful not to get cut by the broken glass. He stuck his head out and looked left and right, seeing nothing except trees and the menacing darkness.

"_O..oshitari-san…"_ Ootori's voice was weak, very weak.

"Ootori!" Oshitari was frantic. "Hold on, we'll save you." The blue haired youth glanced around, worry written all over his face. "Anyone have a cloth? Hurry!"

Niou stepped forwards and passed Oshitari the cloth that he used to clean the wound on the back of his head. Jirou was crying and Atobe seemed glued to the spot. Oshitari pressed the cloth onto the wound on Ootori's right shoulder and the younger boy gasped in pain.

"I'm sorry," Oshitari mumbled, his fingers trembling. Ootori shook his head lightly and beads of sweat or tears trailed down his cheek.

"_Oshitari-san…ge-"_

"Ootori, don't speak, please," Oshitari begged.

"_Get…Shi-shishido-san…"_ Ootori muttered. He gasped again. "_I-I'm alright…Shishido-san…"_

Oshitari looked up and yelled, "ATOBE! What are you doing? Go and find Shishido! Quickly!"

But Atobe did not react. Niou and Yagyuu made their way towards Hyoutei's captain and Niou waved a hand in front of the diva's face. Everyone was too occupied with their own business and did not notice Taki leaving the room.

"Do you see anything Sanada?" Yukimura asked, getting up from the couch. Kirihara covered his face with his hands.

"No, nothing," Sanada replied, moving away from the window.

"_Oshitari-san…please…"_

"ATOBE!" Oshitari exclaimed.

Yagyuu stepped away from Atobe when Niou signaled him to. Niou got into position and slapped the diva, causing a loud _slap_ to echo in the room. That jolted Atobe out of his comatose state and the diva growled.

"Niou…what was that for?"

Instead of replying, Niou spun the diva around and pointed a finger at the desperate Oshitari and at Ootori lying, bleeding, on the couch. Atobe then recalled the last few seconds and rushed over to the door.

"Shishido!"

"_Fi-find…Shishido-san…please…d-don't le-let anything hap-happen…to him…"_

"Ootori, don't use up your energy, we'll find Shishido, so please, stop speaking."

Ootori smiled, even though it obviously hurt. "_I-I wo-won't…make it…Oshitari-san…"_

"No you will!"

"_Tell Shi-shishido-san…that eve-everything…will…be…alright…"_

"You tell him that yourself Ootori!"

"_Please…Oshitari-san…"_ Ootori used his remaining energy to say that sentence, and Oshitari felt his hands go limp, the cloth, now soaked with blood, dropped onto the carpet.

"O-Ootori?" Oshitari fell down onto his bottom on the carpet, beside the bloody cloth.

Jirou scrambled over to Atobe and shook the diva's arm. "Atobe, we have to find Shishido now!"

Atobe looked back at his teammates and swallowed. He nodded furiously and said, "Yes, come on!" He dashed off, Jirou right behind him. Hiyoshi stood up, brushed dust off his shorts and followed like he had no care in the world.

"Oshitari-kun, are you alright?" Yagyuu asked, concerned, placing a hand on the other's shoulder. Oshitari closed his eyes and took in a few breaths.

"Yes, yes I am," he said, pushing himself off the ground. "I need to go and look for Shishido."

Yagyuu moved to follow but was stopped by Yukimura.

"Yukimura-kun?" Yagyuu questioned.

"We need to look for Renji. He might know more than we do. We need him."

Yagyuu looked at Ootori before nodding.

"Akaya," Yukimura called. The younger boy looked up at his name. "Come on, let's go."

Sanada shut the doors after the last of them stepped out of the room. They most definitely were not going back into that room again.

A gust of wind blew Shishido's cap off the carpet and it glided through the air, before landing gently onto Ootori's unmoving chest.

* * *

"Shishido!"

Running footsteps could be heard throughout the hallways. Anxiety, desperation, fear and sorrow radiated from the tennis players' bodies. Atobe pushed doors open, one after another, only to be greeted with nothing but furniture in each room.

"Shishido!"

"Atobe," Jirou panted behind him. "This is meaningless."

"Ahn~" Atobe skidded to a stop and swirled around, nearly causing Jirou to crash into him. "What do you mean by _meaningless_?"

"You know how big this place is," Jirou explained, taking a few steps away from his captain. "We need to think of a place where Shishido would go to, instead of searching around helplessly."

"We don't have time for that Jirou! Who knows what Shishido would do? His mental state is not exactly the best at the moment and after he saw what happened to Ootori…"

"Atobe-san, Shishido-san is not that weak," Hiyoshi said, finally catching up to the two.

"How do you know Hiyoshi?" Atobe narrowed his eyes. "You've been emotionless like a rock, no _worse_ than a rock, this whole time."

"Atobe, calm down!" Jirou pleaded.

"We need to go on now!"

"Atobe, wait." Oshitari ran up to them and pulled Atobe by the arm. "Shishido would probably be in his room."

"Where is his room?"

"Upstairs, come on," Oshitari said, beckoning them to follow him as he made his way to the stairs.

* * *

"Renji/Yanagi-senpai/Yanagi!"

The Rikkai regulars called out the data master's name repeatedly as they roamed the mansion.

"It's no use." Kirihara sighed. "He can't hear us."

"Let's split up," Yukimura suggested.

"But Yukimura-"

"We're not safe alone nor with a group. I think we know that very well, Sanada." Yukimura's face was stern. "We'll have a higher chance of finding Renji if we split up."

Sanada thought for a few seconds before agreeing with his captain.

"Niou," Yukimura called out each and every one of the regular's names and assigned them an area to search. Due to the small number of people, the areas that they were each assigned to were humongous, and would take much longer than it would when they did a search earlier with the other schools.

They got ready to go their separate ways when Yagyuu asked, "What if Yanagi-kun is outside the villa?"

"I highly doubt Renji would go out there. We've been prohibited from leaving the premises remember?"

Scenes depicting Jackal and Kawamura flashed through their minds.

Not needing any further explanations, Yagyuu nodded and they went on their way.

* * *

She tiptoed her way silently behind the curly haired boy. She was skilled, having practiced since young. She knew the right distance to stay behind, not getting too close, yet not too far away. He didn't notice a single thing.

* * *

Kirihara opened a few doors, peered in, finding the light switch (switching on the lights), called for Yanagi, switched off the lights, shut the doors when he heard no reply, and repeated the procedure over and over again. He was in charge of searching the rooms assigned to the tennis players. The only one he refused to go near was Kaidoh's – because of obvious reasons.

Kirihara did not know why, but he had a sinking feeling that something was about to happen. Something bad. He had to admit that he was frightened. Kirihara wished that Yanagi would just appear in front of him and reassure him that everything was going to be just fine.

But, if that were to happen. He wouldn't need to be looking for the data master in the first place.

It was the same scene over and over again. A room with a large king-sized bed in the middle, bedside table with a lamp on each side of the bed, and an unpacked or half-unpacked luggage either on the bed or on the floor.

Kirihara closed yet another door and sighed. He looked ahead at the seemingly never ending hallway. Why did Atobe's villa have to be so freaking gigantic? Shoving his hands into his pockets, Kirihara dragged his feet over to another room.

* * *

The girl behind him paused outside a room, observed Kirihara for a moment, before turning the doorknob and entering. Once inside, she looked around for something that she might be able to use.

The bedside lamp. Nope. Hangers in the closet. Nope. A luggage. Obviously not. Then, a particular bag caught her attention. Leaning against the bed was a tennis bag. Of course, containing tennis rackets. The girl grinned and unzipped the bag, pulling out one of the tennis rackets inside it.

Stifling a laugh, the girl poked her head out of the room, spotted Kirihara, and carefully shut the door with a soft _click_. Holding the tennis racket behind her back, she continued to follow the curly haired boy.

* * *

"Yanagi-senpa-"

Kirihara was abruptly cut off by a shove on his back. He stumbled into the room like a heavy elephant and whipped around to lash out, only to see a menacing grin and a tennis racket swinging towards his head.

Kirihara quickly jumped away, narrowly avoiding the first attack, and crashed into the bedside table. A scream got caught in his throat as his fingers fumbled around for something that he could use to defend himself. His fingers circled the base of the lamp and he picked it up, pulling the plug out of the socket. In his haste, he hurriedly threw it at his attacker and did a ninja roll across to the other side of the bed. However, the girl simply dodged and jumped up onto the bed.

The curly haired boy's eyes widened with fear as he backed himself against the wall. The girl advanced onto him, her eyes never leaving his trembling body, like a hawk eyeing its prey. Kirihara made silent prayers in his mind and opened his mouth, letting out a huge scream that was previously stuck in his throat. The loud volume did not faze the girl and Kirihara wonders how a tiny girl could be so terrifying.

'_Buchou! Save me!'_ Kirihara thought, as beads of sweat formed on his forehead.

"No one can hear you," the girl said, licking her lips. She lifted up the tennis racket and swung it down, Kirihara's eyes followed the racket's movement and realized that he was trapped. He tilted his head to the side and the blow of the racket hit the left side of his head. Kirihara crumpled down onto the floor, his hand automatically went up to his head and he let out a groan. He heard the girl laugh and he called for help again.

"Scream all you like! No one can hear you!" The girl repeatedly hit Kirihara at the same spot, the side of the tennis racket getting stained with blood with every hit. Kirihara eventually lost strength in his body and was lying down on the carpet like a life-sized doll. Satisfied, the girl tossed the bloody tennis racket down beside her and pulled Kirihara up onto the bed – with some difficulty considering her size.

"Ah, I don't have the materials," the girl muttered. "Well, whatever, this should do it. Although it would have been better if he was up on the wall…"

Reaching into her pocket, the girl pulled out a small pocketknife and smiled evilly.

"If I recall properly…you did something terrible to my darling, didn't you? At a particular tennis match." Her eyes glinted and she licked the blade. She lifted up her right hand, which was holding the blade, above Kirihara's eyes and lowered it slowly, doing her work.

"Revenge is sweet," was the last sentence the girl said before she switched off the lights and left the room, bloody pocketknife in her pocket.

A piece of paper was then taped to the door.

* * *

"Shishido! Open the door!"

Atobe pounded his fists on the wooden door while Oshitari tried the doorknob for the 100th time. The Hyoutei regulars were standing outside of Shishido's assigned room and the door was locked.

"Shishido!"

Jirou squatted down and squeezed in between the two's legs and placed his ear against the wood and tried to listen in. There wasn't any noise coming from inside.

"Shishido! Open the door right this very moment!" Atobe commanded.

"Doing that won't make him open it you know," Hiyoshi commented.

"Then think of something Hiyoshi!" Atobe snapped, before he continued to yell and pound his fists on the door.

"Um, Atobe," Jirou said. "I think Hiyoshi is right though…"

"Huh?" Atobe narrowed his eyes.

"Shishido's not really in the right mental state at the moment, we don't want to scare him," Oshitari explained, understanding what Jirou was getting to.

"Well, _sorry_ ore-sama scares people." Atobe rolled his eyes and stepped away from the door, folding his arms across his chest.

"Sarcasm is not appreciated at the moment Atobe," Oshitari replied.

"Shishido…" Jirou called out, softer than Atobe did before. "Come out, please?" He knocked lightly on the door.

"Shishido, open the door, Ootori is worried about you, you know," Oshitari added.

Jirou pressed his ear against the wood again. He shook his head at Oshitari and shrugged.

"Shishido, open up please!" Oshitari called again, desperation in his tone.

"Do you think he…" Jirou asked fearfully. Oshitari shook his head. "No, I don't think he would do that."

"You'll never know." Hiyoshi shrugged.

Oshitari turned to glare at the second year and Atobe said, "Hiyoshi, shut up." Hiyoshi only rolled his eyes.

Atobe never had a problem with Hiyoshi before. He was going to be the future captain for goodness sake! The normally well-behaved Hiyoshi, only determined to defeat Atobe, was getting on Atobe's nerves. What was wrong with his team? It was as if Mukahi alone wasn't enough. Atobe rubbed his temples and reminded himself, '_It's the stress. We're all stressed up. Calm down, Keigo.'_

"He's not opening…" Jirou complained.

"Argh!" Oshitari punched the wall. "Is there another way to get him out of there?"

"Break down the door," Hiyoshi suggested.

Atobe rolled his eyes and exclaimed, "That's ridi-" He paused. "Wait…"

"That's a great idea Hiyoshi!" Jirou jumped up onto his feet. "Sorry Atobe, but we're just going to have to destroy your villa."

"Yeah, whatever." Atobe waved a hand, his mind confused. Taking a few steps away from the door, Oshitari squared himself and rammed into the door with his right shoulder. The door _creaked_ but didn't budge.

"Guys, I can't do this alone." Oshitari brushed his shoulder. Atobe pointed at the second year and ordered, "Hiyoshi."

Hiyoshi sighed but joined Oshitari anyway. "Ready, one, two, three, go!"

This time, the door gave way, and the two fell down onto the ground in the dark room. Stepping over their legs, Atobe walked in and flicked the light switch. The light flickered and filled the room with light.

"What the…?" Atobe was stunned.

"There's no one here?" Jirou exclaimed, his jaw dropping down onto the ground.

It was true, the room was empty, except for them and the furniture, of course.

"Where's Shishido?" Oshitari asked, picking himself up from the ground.

"Ore-sama doesn't know." Atobe glanced around. "More importantly, why was the door locked, if there's no one inside?"

Jirou pointed towards the window, the curtain flapping in the wind.

"This was just a…distraction?" Oshitari brought his hand up to his mouth and gasped.

"It would seem so," Atobe said, and turned to face his teammates. "Distraction from what?"

"Shishido!" Jirou gasped in realization.

* * *

"Did you find him? Over."

The male paused mid-step after hearing the voice of a female who he knew so well. Instead of entering like he normally would have, he pressed himself against the wood and tried to listen to more of the conversation. The sniping rifle rested on his leg as he tried to stop his heart from jumping out.

"Yes. Over." That was a male's voice. "What do you want me to do? Over."

"Mm…" the girl mused. "Get rid of him, all of them will get their turn anyway. It doesn't matter who goes first. I can rely on you I presume, the other one is a wimp. Over."

"We're not alike, princess. Over."

"Then, bring back my faith in you. The wimp has taken that away. He's too soft-hearted. Over."

"Okay princess. Over."

The male standing outside held his breath. His eyes flickered from tree trunk to tree trunk. Even in the dark, he feared that he was going to get caught. He gripped the strap on the sniping rifle tightly in his hand, slung it over his shoulder and pushed off the ground, jogging as he made his way back to the mansion, dead leaves crunching under his shoes.

* * *

"Did anyone find Renji?" Yukimura asked the regulars when they reassembled. They shook their heads and Niou mumbled a few incomprehensible words. "Where's Akaya?"

Sanada looked around and realized that the second year truly was not around. "Akaya?" he called out.

"He's probably late," Niou replied.

"This would be a bad time to be late," Yagyuu responded.

"Where could they be?" Sanada grumbled, biting his lip.

"I gave Akaya the rooms, let's go and look," Yukimura ordered, pushing past Niou and Yagyuu towards the staircase. The other three followed him, hot on his heels.

"Akaya!"

"Brat!" Niou shouted, receiving a whack to the back of his head from Sanada. Niou glared and muttered, "That hurt. Watch it."

"Be serious," Sanada warned.

"Akaya-kun!" Yagyuu cupped his mouth and called out.

"Brattling, answer if you can hear us!"

"Niou!" Sanada's eye twitched.

"What? I always call Akaya 'brat'."

"Sanada, Niou, no more unnecessary discussions," Yukimura said, silencing them. "Our purpose is to find Renji and Akaya."

"Yukimura-kun," Yagyuu said. "Look at this." He pointed towards a particular door.

_The Devil, Kirihara Akaya, lies here._ Those were the words written on the piece of paper taped on the door.

"Akaya!" Yukimura voice wavered and he quickly turned the doorknob, pushing the door open. Feeling the walls for the light switch, he quickly flicked it and his heart nearly stopped.

"Get out," Yukimura's voice was dangerous, his body shielding the way further into the room.

"What?" Yagyuu asked, and tried to step forwards when Yukimura repeated with more force.

"Get out!"

The Rikkai regulars immediately stepped back and Yukimura slammed the door shut, ripped the piece of paper off the door and tore it into pieces, stomping on it.

"Yukimura, what did you see?" Sanada asked, concerned. Yukimura threw his hands up in the air and placed them on the sides of his head.

"Get Renji, we have to find Renji. NOW."

Niou reached his hand forwards to turn the doorknob when Yukimura exclaimed, "Niou, get away from that door!"

The trickster jerked and his hand immediately fell down to his side.

Yukimura dashed down the hallway and the rest followed, Sanada calling out his name in concern. As they turned the corner, Yukimura's heart made its way up into his windpipe.

"Renji…"

"Seiichi," Yanagi responded, as if everything was perfectly normal.

"Renji, where were you?" Sanada asked fiercely.

"No time for explanations, Genichirou, I need you to follow me. Now." The data master turned and brisk walked down the hallway, without even bothering to check whether his teammates were following him. He didn't have to. He trusted them and knew that they would.

"Oi Yanagi!" Niou said. "Where are we going?"

The data master didn't reply, and the Rikkai regulars followed him silently. There were many unanswered questions, but some things were better left unknown.

* * *

Shishido sat in between two bookshelves, curled up into a ball as he rocked back and forth.

'_Choutarou, Choutarou, Choutarou…!'_ The scene repeated itself over and over again in his mind. Ootori getting shot, the sound of the bullet being shot, blood seeping through his Hyoutei regulars' jacket. Everything was so clear in his head, no matter how much Shishido wanted it to disappear, it wouldn't. It just continued replaying itself like an unstoppable video.

He didn't notice Taki approaching him. He didn't notice the dark aura radiating from the young butler's body. He didn't notice the sharp blade hidden underneath the young butler's sleeve.

"Should I put you out of your misery?" the young butler asked. Shishido slowly looked up and he laughed silently.

"I suggest that you do not attempt to do that."

The young butler whipped his head around and narrowed his eyes. At the entrance to the library was the Rikkai regulars, Yanagi being the one saying that sentence. Taki smiled and clasped his hands behind his back.

"Oh? And why not?" he challenged.

Ignoring Taki's challenge, Yanagi continued, "You're not the real Taki, are you? Who are you?"

The smile on "Taki"'s face grew larger. The Rikkai regulars exchanged confused looks and all they could do was look back and forth between "Taki" and Yanagi.

"You're quite smart, aren't you?" "Taki" replied, a Cheshire Cat's grin seemed etched on his face.

* * *

**A/N: It's Easter Break, so I had time to write, and ideas were haunting my mind.**

**celtic27fionn: **No, the thought of discontinuing never crossed my mind. My intention of writing it there was to let people know that I am indeed completing this story. This was because I received a few reviews asking me to continue, and I was wondering why they were asking as I never ever mentioned that I was not going to continue - I probably just wasn't clear enough. So yeah. Sorry for any misunderstandings. And your review is great, don't ever think that it's not helpful or anything.**  
**

**Alice39: **Aha...sorry...Akaya's bit, just had to happen. Um, for the epilogue about them in heaven? I'll take that into consideration. It might come out as an extra chapter after the story is completed.

**Lynnie Kleriker: **Okay, now that you mention the tensai part...wow it is actually pretty amusing. Unfortunately, I did not think of that. It would be pretty cool if she did take Oshitari as well didn't she?

**Happy April Fools Day! Did anyone fool anyone, or did anyone get fooled? Sadly, I don't have any tales to tell, because my day consisted of me sitting in front of my laptop all day.**


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

"Renji, what do you mean that he's not Taki?" Sanada asked, pointing a finger at "Taki". "No matter how I look at it, he looks exactly like Taki and sounds like Taki."

With his hands still clasped behind his back, "Taki" edged closer to the Rikkaidai regulars and smirked, "You're a smart guy, but have you thought about me killing you without answering your question?"

Yanagi frowned. "I believe that you wouldn't do that without further orders."

"Oh really?" "Taki" grinned and his arm swung forwards, the sharp edge of the pocketknife facing the data master.

"Renji!" Yukimura exclaimed and tried to pull Yanagi out of the way, but the data master stopped his captain with his arm and simply stood there.

It was as if Yanagi knew that he wasn't going to get hurt, as the pocketknife landed mere centimetres away from his face.

"Taki" pulled back and slipped his pocketknife back into his sleeve. "You didn't even flinch eh?"

"Who are you?" Yanagi repeated.

"I don't need to answer do I?" "Taki" asked, tilting his head to the side, his facial expression smug.

Suddenly, another figure entered the library through a window.

The Rikkai regulars gulped and kept their guards up, Yagyuu quickly rushing over to Shishido, pulling the other boy to his feet.

"Kenta, it's time to stop all of this," the newcomer, a hooded male, said. Yanagi's ears twitched at the familiarity of the voice.

"What are you doing here?" "Taki" clicked his tongue. "Are you planning on spoiling everything that we've worked for?"

"That's because we can't do this anymore Kenta. We have to stop Himeka from causing more damage."

_'Kenta? Himeka?'_ Yanagi thought, as he flipped through Inui's notebook.

Looking up, the data master interrupted the conversation between the other two males and said, "The real Taki Watano is you, isn't it?"

The Rikkai regulars followed Yanagi's finger, which was pointing to the male in the hood.

"Taki" threw his hands up in the air and exclaimed, "Ah, ah, you blew it. Princess is going to have our heads chopped off now."

The one that Yanagi proclaimed as Taki Watano nodded and pulled his hood off his head.

"Yes, you're right. I'm Taki Watano."

"Two Takis?" Sanada furrowed his eyebrows.

"The brat would definitely be shouting 'clones' right now," Niou said, blinking rapidly.

Yukimura glanced at the trickster from the corner of his eye before looking down at the carpet.

"Kenta, drop the act already," Taki Watano told "Taki".

"Taki" sighed and tugged at his collar, unbuttoning the first button of his butler's uniform and cleared his throat.

"If Himeka was the Queen of Hearts, she would be shouting, "Off with their heads", right this very moment, Watano," "Taki" said, his voice having changed completely.

Niou's eyes widened and he pointed his finger at "Taki". "You're the one who attacked me and Bunta!"

"Taki" glanced at Niou lazily and responded, "Ah. You're the one I threw against a wall."

"You…" Niou gritted his teeth together. "What did you do to Bunta?"

"Oh? You want to fight?"

"Stop it, Kenta." Watano placed a hand on "Taki"'s chest and pushed him backwards.

"What's going on here?" Yagyuu asked, confused by the turn of events.

"We'll explain everything when Keigo-sama," he paused, "I mean, Atobe and the rest arrive," Watano replied, and gestured to the Rikkai regulars to sit on the beanbags scattered around the large library.

When the tennis players didn't budge, Watano sighed and said, "We're not going to harm you. Just please, listen to me."

"How can we believe you, after you have killed so many of our acquaintances?"

Watano didn't get the chance to reply as at that very moment, Atobe and the rest of Hyoutei emerged behind the Rikkai regulars, who were blocking the way further into the library.

"Ahn~?" Atobe said. "Ore-sama have listened to you and came here. Ore-sama demands to know what is going on here!"

"Atobe," Sanada addressed the diva.

"Oh, Rikkai's here too."

"Who are you and for what reason have you gathered us for?" Atobe yelled over the top of the Rikkai regulars' heads. "Not to mention, when ore-sama gets out of here, he would have you thrown into prison for life!"

"I would deem that as an appropriate punishment for our misdeeds, no, a death sentence would be more suitable, as we have stolen your friends' futures." Watano bowed down, even though Atobe would not have been able to see his actions from behind Sanada.

_"That's too light of a punishment."_ Yukimura gritted his teeth. His fists were clenched tightly into balls and his nails were digging into his palms.

"Are you serious Watano?" Kenta asked, his face was that of disbelief.

"Yes, Kenta." Watano nodded, straightening up.

"What about Himeka?" Kenta demanded. "Don't you remember our promise to her?"

"I don't care what's going on between you two, but I order you to just _shut up_ and let us leave _now._"

Faces turned to look at Oshitari, who had his arms folded across his chest. His teammates were stunned as they would expect that kind of attitude from Atobe, but not Oshitari.

"Of course, you'll be taken to the police station." Oshitari took a step forwards, squeezing past Sanada and Yanagi. "Just a reminder though. I'll never forgive you for cold-bloodedly murdering our friends."

"Heh, so what if you don't forgive me?" Kenta waved his hand in the air.

However, Watano had a completely different reaction. "I deeply apologise for mine and Kenta's actions."

"I would like to know about Marui's situation and that Himeka of yours," Yanagi said.

"I will tell you everything, so please, just sit and listen to me," Watano pleaded.

"NO! What in the world are you thinking Watano? Have you gone nuts?" Kenta protested. "I promised Himeka! She said that she could trust me! I get why she said that you were soft-hearted now!"

Watano firmly gripped Kenta's wrist but the other boy shook him off. His pocketknife slid out of his sleeve again and this time, he swung it at Watano.

"I'll kill you and make Himeka happy!" he roared.

"You're being foolish Kenta!" Watano bellowed, hitting Kenta's arm aside, the pocketknife flying out of the male's hand, hitting the brown wall before dropping down onto the floor. "I get that we'd promised to keep Himeka happy! But what we're doing is wrong! We've gone too far this time! There are no excuses for taking away lives!"

Kenta's jaw was tense, his breathing hard, but he remained silent as Watano continued on.

"And I think you know that very well Kenta. Lives are not to be taken for granted. Pain and sorrow awaits the loved ones of those we've brutally murdered – just like how we were. I'm sure you remember that don't you?" Watano's voice was calmer, almost loving.

"I'm sure you remember how we were like ten years ago, don't you Kenta?" Watano repeated, placing a hand on Kenta's shoulder, hoping to get his feelings through to the other guy. "I'm sure you remember what happened to our mother."

The middle schoolers looked at each other questioningly and shrugged. They reluctantly spread themselves comfortably around the library, waiting for the two strangers to finally explain to them what the hell was going on.

They wanted answers, and they were going to get them. Even if the idea of _sitting_, no, _being_ in the same room as their friends' murderers was beyond ridiculous.

"So? What's your story?"

Kenta and Watano broke their stares at each other and Watano cleared his throat, looking slightly sheepish.

"My apologies," said Watano, glacing back at Kenta, who was surprisingly quiet. Watano pulled Kenta over to the leftover beanbags, pocketknife left forgotten on the carpet. "I will start from the beginning."

_'Oh yes, please do,' _thought Yukimura, rolling his eyes. He did not care about the murderers' life story, other than the answers to the few questions: 'What was their purpose?', 'Who were they?' and last but not least, 'Why us?'

"Kenta and I, we're twins, and Himeka is our sister."

Watano patted his pockets and pulled out a brown and worn-out wallet. Upon opening it, he showed the tennis players a picture stuck onto a corner, which depicted a family of five; a woman dressed in a pale pink sundress, a cleanly cut male who looked like a typical businessman, but there was something in his eyes that said otherwise, two identical twins – presumably Taki Watano and Kenta – around the age of eight years old, and a six year old girl in the woman's arms – presumably Himeka whom they were talking about.

"Oh, so a family full of loonies," Niou scoffed, his eyes glaring daggers at Kenta. Yagyuu only nudged the trickster in the ribs.

"This was taken ten years ago, when our mother was still alive." There was a pause. "She was murdered. Brutally. Her body was in pieces by the time the police arrived at the scene-"

"Terribly sorry for your loss, but we don't want to hear anything unrelated to what we want to know," Yanagi bluntly cut in. All of them knew that Yanagi was not even the slightest bit concerned about the Taki twins' loss; there was no way Yanagi would be.

"…I'm sorry, but it does have some relation…" Watano swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. "It was what changed our whole family. We were just a normal, happy and loving family like everyone else. Our father was a weapon dealer, but he kept his business separate from our lives, our mother forced him not to get us involved in any of his dealings. So, us two and Himeka were just normal children, living normal lives. But after that incident, Himeka's mind got scarred from the trauma; that was what the therapist told us at the very least. No one could explain the strange-"

_(There was a soft 'beep' when Kenta shifted; no one noticed.)_

"-behaviour…that's not the right word to describe it," Watano mused, tapping his index finger on his chin.

"Split personality," Kenta chipped in, tugging on the cuffs of his bloodstained uniform.

_'Split personality?'_ thought the remaining tennis players.

"Is that realistically possible?" asked Yanagi, intrigued.

The Taki twins shrugged and shook their heads. "We don't know. But that's that's the only way to explain her eccentric behaviour; eccentric does not even cut it. Her personality drastically changes – one is of an innocent, naive and sweet child stuck at the age of six, just like how Himeka was before the incident, and the other is of a mature and kind of psychopathic lady. It was disturbing to see this switch between personalities from our little sister."

"And what does this have to do with us?" Atobe scratched his neck, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

"I'm just explaining everything from the beginning."

"Cut the story short and get to the damn point. Tell me where Bunta is," Niou fumed, "before I hurl you to Antarctica myself."

"He's in our hideout just a few kilometres into the forest," replied Watano, as calm as a cucumber, as if there weren't any middle schoolers itching to slit his throat. Kenta played with his fingernails, seemingly uninterested with Niou's outburst. "Don't worry, he's safe. Himeka wouldn't hurt him. She had asked for him to be captured alive after all."

"So that Himeka of yours is with Marui in the forest?" confirmed Yanagi, writing the information down into Inui's notebook.

"There's another boy, Fuji Syuusuke. If I remember correctly." Watano turned to look at his brother. "Is that right?"

Kenta looked up from his nails and gazed blankly at the sky, before shrugging. "Ah…that girly looking guy…I guess so?"

"Fuji?" voiced the tennis players. They glanced at each other and someone said, "He's alive?"

"Himeka wanted him," said Watano as he observed the tennis players' behaviour.

"So that "beloved" person written in the notes was Fuji?" Hiyoshi asked. Yanagi took out the notes from the pages in Inui's notebook and nodded.

"It would seem so."

"Now this explains why Fuji disappeared without a trace…" someone muttered.

Yanagi looked up. "Why would your sister want Fuji?"

* * *

"'Cause he's my beloved you filthy peasants!" Taki Himeka nearly yelled into the handheld transceiver. It wouldn't matter either way, as she was not holding onto the button.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here? Two traitors I see…" she hissed, her eyes were filled with malice. Himeka tightened her grip on the handheld transceiver and directed a glare at the metal door leading into the other room.

* * *

"Love at first sight, she says."

"That's just psycho," Hiyoshi muttered under his breath.

"After our mother died, there was nothing left to hold our father back from instructing his children how to take over his business. He also wanted to get vengeance on our mother's killer. He taught us everything from a young age. How to use a gun, how to fight, how to _kill_. Everything. He probably wants us to continue his journey for revenge should he not be able to find the killer. It sounds like a plot from a famous television drama or movie I know, but believe me, that was our life."

"So…how does this lead to you two promising to make your sister happy? No matter how insane and fucked up your lives are, resorting to murder to make another happy is just plain ridiculous," Oshitari commented.

Watano and Kenta exchanged glances.

"Himeka was with our mother during the incident. She saw everything that happened with her own two eyes. As her older brothers…we thought that we would be doing a good thing to at least make her life a little bit less horrible, I guess. It started with just tiny stuff, like giving her the extra cookie, but then it just escalated…and became like this. But do you understand what we mean? Can you imagine the life of a six year old, with a double personality and training to become a future murderer?"

"She's already a murderer," Yukimura spat out. "You all are."

Watano shook his head. "We've actually never killed anyone before. This…was the first time for us."

"Sure doesn't seem like it!" Yukimura stood up furiously. "Are you trying to make me feel _sorry_ for you? To _sympathise_ with you? First time?" Yukimura made a deranged laugh. "I don't see how _carving_ someone's eyes out is a sign of a first-time murderer!"

Watano and Kenta were visibly shocked by the outburst. Sanada had to hold Yukimura back from throwing himself at the two.

"W-what do you mean, _carving someone's eyes out_?" stammered Watano. "I've never done anything like that. Did you Kenta?"

Kenta shook his head vigorously.

"If it's not you two, then who did it? Who was the one that killed Akaya?" Yukimura yelled.

"What? Akaya?" Sanada said, stunned. "What are you talking about Yukimura?"

"Yukimura-kun…is this…that time…?" Yagyuu was lost for words.

"Yes." Yukimura nodded. "In that room, Akaya was lying on the bed, there was a bloody gap where his eyes should have been."

"What in the world…?" Kenta said. "Don't tell me…Himeka did it?"

"No! That's just ridiculous! Himeka would never do anything that extreme…even for her second personality, it's just not poss-"

"Hey, does anyone smell that?" Jirou interrupted, sniffing the air. The others followed his actions and their eyes widened.

"Now that you mention it…it does smell like s-"

* * *

Fuji and Marui were discussing various ideas and plans to escape from their tiny prison when Himeka walked in, with a plastic zip-lock bag in her fingers. Frightened green eyes stared at the two tennis players from inside the zip-lock bag and Marui felt bile rise up to his throat. He dismissed the thought about how those eyes looked so familiar.

"What the _hell_ is that?" Fuji asked, disgust written all over his face.

"Just a tiny little present for you my dear. Don't you remember the eyes of that little demon brat?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You don't remember?" Himeka asked, walking closer. "Shall I refresh your memory for you?"

_"No thank you,"_ Fuji hissed.

"Well, if you insist." Himeka smiled. "That brat who decided that it would be fun to _blind_ you at a particular Kantou Tournament tennis match? I got my revenge for you darling."

"Akaya!" gasped Marui. No wonder those eyes looked so familiar to him. "You did _what_ to Akaya?"

"I decided to return the favour… After all…it was his own fault for blinding Syuusuke in the first place."

"You _bitch_! I'll freaking kill you, I swear!" Marui exclaimed, thrashing around in his binds.

Himeka threw her head back and laughed. "What a good sense of humour you have there Onii-chan! After all, the kind Onii-chan will never kill anyone, especially me, _right?_"

Marui narrowed his eyes at her. "Believe what you want, but when I get out of here…"

"Marui, stop, you don't want to become like her. A filthy cold-blooded murderer."

"But-!"

"We'll let the authorities deal with her after we get out of here. No use dirtying our hands for a piece of trash."

Himeka clapped her hands together. "What a nice and inspiring speech darling. Why, you two seem to love to joke today."

She placed the zip-lock bag onto the bed.

"Unfortunately darling, Onii-chan, I have other things to deal with right now. Two traitors of mine needs to be taken care off immediately, don't you think?"

With that, she left, however, she did not notice that she had dropped something that would be the key to free both Fuji and Marui.

A tiny, black hairpin had fallen out of her hair.

* * *

**A/N: I don't like writing background information on characters...it just feels like I am just overloading you with information. But, it's necessary in this story...so...woe is me. **

**Comments, constructive criticism and alerts are all greatly appreciated!**


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

"Fuji, is that what I think it is?"

"Yes! Do you think you can reach it? I can use it to pick the handcuff."

"I'll try…" Marui didn't sound too confident. Fuji heard grunts and shuffling of Marui's shoes against the cemented floor.

"I can't, it's too far."

Marui's feet were barely an inch away from the hairpin, but judging by the look on his face, Fuji realized that it was already the other boy's limit.

"How about changing your position?" Fuji queried. "If I can get hold of this, we can get out of here. We can get help."

"Right, just let me wriggle like a slimy worm and break loose from the rope that is binding me to the leg of a bed," drawled Marui sarcastically. "I'm a little tied up here Fuji!"

Even so, Marui tried once more to reach the pin. It was crucial that they get hold of it. For their own sake, and for their friends' sake.

"How far away is it?"

"Just a little bit more," said Fuji.

There was a groan.

"Ah! You've got it, you've got it!"

A grunt.

"Can you kick it to my direction?"

"Shit," Marui cursed, having accidentally pushed the hair pin further away from him. Fighting away the pain screaming in his legs from having stretched to their limit, Marui reached further forwards. "How far is it?"

"About a millimetre."

Marui groaned, his face contorting with agony. "You're just trying to make me feel better."

"No-" Fuji paused, "Stop! You have it!"

"Thank God," breathed Marui. There was another grunt as he tried to kick the pin towards Fuji.

Fuji reached forwards, the handcuff clinging loudly against the metal frame of the bed. If only his legs weren't bonded together, he probably would have been in a comfier position.

Both boys' eyes were fixed on the pin as it slid across the ground, brushed against Fuji's fingernails and went under the bed.

"Crap, too much strength," Marui said angrily, squeezing his eyes shut. He relaxed his legs and shuddered when his muscles finally stopped screaming at him, threatening to tear apart at any moment. "Sorry Fuji."

"It's okay, I will get it."

Marui glanced at Fuji before turning to look at the tightly shut door. "Do you think she'll come back?"

"Yes, that's why we have to escape before she returns," answered Fuji. "Where's the pin?"

Marui quickly snapped his head back at Fuji and poked his neck out, in search of the tiny, black pin which was currently hidden in the shadow of the bed. Fuji's fingers occasionally scraped the ground as he went from left to right and right to left, hoping to be able to figure out the pin's position by touch.

"A bit to your right," Marui instructed, having spotted it.

"Here?"

"Yeah."

"I don't feel a thing." Fuji felt beads of perspiration drip down his forehead and onto the ground. He could also feel the blood rushing towards his brain after having been half-upside down for a while. It made Fuji feel dizzy.

"It's a little further underneath."

"I can't reach that far."

Marui heard the clanking of metal against metal again as Fuji shook his right hand in frustration.

"You can reach further if you lie flat on your belly."

Fuji raised his head and he instantly regretted it. The blood flowed away from his head due to gravity and he had to close his eyes and take a few deep breaths before the passing out sensation vanished. He then processed Marui's suggestion and realized that he was sitting with his feet on the ground and bending over to grab the pin. Fuji quickly adjusted his position, as quickly as he could with his feet bonded together, and reached yet again for the pin.

This time, he managed to acquire it with less difficulty.

"Do you know how to pick a lock?" Marui asked, watching Fuji struggle with the handcuff. Feel like he should be doing something to help as well, Marui tugged his hands here and there hoping to loosen the ropes.

"No," Fuji replied. "I'm just hoping that it'll work if I fiddle around with the pin."

It was already hard enough for Fuji, being a right hander and having to use his non-dominant hand to do such a meticulous task. Without prior knowledge of lock-picking, the chances of Fuji actually managing to pick it was low.

"Oh."

"Why? Do you?"

"'Haru taught me."

"Hm…as expected from the Trickster."

Marui kicked his legs. "Argh! It's not use! I'm just getting rope burns."

"Hold on, I think I nearly got it."

"How long has it been since _she_ left?"

"Around twenty minutes, I guess?" Fuji's reply was a little slow; he was concentrating hard on picking the handcuff.

Marui bit his lip and averted his eyes away from the plastic zip-lock bag on the mattress. He wonders if he should be glad that Fuji had not kicked it at him while he was changing his position but decided that it was not the time and place to think about such silly things. He however, could not stifle the anger bubbling inside him.

Marui immediately got back to attempting to untie himself from the ropes as Fuji didn't seem to have made any progress with the handcuff.

Who knew when she would return?

There was a loud click; it probably wasn't as loud as Marui thought, but the sound of the handcuff clicking open was like the sound of wedding bells to his ears.

Fuji's cry, "I got it!" only added to his joy.

Fuji instantly went to work on the ropes on his own legs after freeing his right hand from the cuffs. Fuji did not drop his guard or slow down even after the ropes dropped down onto the mattress. He quickly went to Marui's side and helped the red head loosen his binds.

"Thanks," Marui said, grimacing at the blood that was flowing down his wrists; the ropes had been too tight. He was surprised that he did not feel the pain from the cuts yet had felt the pain in his legs. However, he did not have long to ponder over it as Fuji cautiously opened the door and peeked outside.

The coast was clear.

Fuji opened the door wider and gestured to Marui to follow. Marui was about to step out of the room before he paused and thought, _'Akaya…'_

He didn't want to look back, didn't want to see the fear filled eyes staring back at him, didn't want to look at the eyes of his precious teammate, friend that he could not even help.

"Marui!" the hiss from Fuji brought him out of his trance and Marui nodded back, pushing the thoughts away from his mind.

Marui took a few steps to catch up when a handgun lying on the table top caught his attention. He stared at it for a few moments. With that, he could…

_"Marui, stop, you don't want to become like her. A filthy cold-blooded murderer."_

_"We'll let the authorities deal with her after we get out of here. No use dirtying our hands for a piece of trash."_

…that's right. What in the world was he thinking?

Marui shook his head furiously and jogged out of the cabin and into the vast forest. Fuji was standing still as if waiting for something or he was just at a lost as to what to do. Neither of them knew where they were and where to go. Atobe's mansion was not anywhere in sight.

"Fuji," Marui called out. The light brown haired male turned at the sound of his name. "We can't stay here."

Fuji nodded and the two dashed off in a random direction, silently wishing with all their might that it would lead them to civilization or at the very least, help.

Neither of them saw black smoke rising up into the air in the opposite direction.

* * *

Himeka's hand was tightly gripping the metal door, so hard that it looked like the metal would bend under her grasp. The empty room, untied ropes lying on the ground and the mattress in front of her made her fury grow.

They were gone. They had left her alone. Betrayed her. Just like her two blood _brothers._

"Those sneaky bastards…" she growled. Stomping over to the table, she picked up the handgun and held it in her hand. She then proceeded to pick up another loaded handgun that was hidden in the drawer.

"If I can't have you…no one can."

It was such a cliché line that almost every psychopathic criminal says in movies but that was exactly what Himeka thought at that time.

* * *

Fuji ignored the searing pain in his throat and lungs as he ran. He remembered that he hadn't drank any water for almost a day; Marui was in the same state as he was, but he didn't hear any complaints from the red head and decided to keep quiet about it.

There was nothing they could do but run.

To a destination which they did not know.

They could be heading towards a cliff, or they could be heading towards a highway, or they could be heading deeper into the wilderness, or they could be heading towards a town.

"Fuji."

Marui slowed down to a jog. Fuji wonders how Marui had gotten in front of him when he was pretty sure that Marui was behind the entire time. He didn't have long to question it however, as the scene in front of them stunned both tennis players.

Big and bold purple letters contrasting against white. A wreckage of what once used to be a pristine white bus was lying on top of jagged rocks. Fuji looked up and noticed that there were broken metal safety railings hanging from what seems to be a cliff, or a road on a cliff.

"Atobe's…" Fuji breathed out.

There was a yelp and Fuji snapped his head around to see Marui pinching his nose and backing away from what seems to be the front of the bus.

"Don't go there," Marui advised him, pulling Fuji's jersey. "The bus driver…he was shot."

Fuji turned his head to look and caught a glimpse of the corpse. It was not a pretty sight. Maggots were crawling all over the man and one side of his brain had been blown apart due to the gunshot he had received to the head. He thought about his teammates lying back in the mansion. Were bugs and maggots all crawling over their…

Fuji suppressed a shiver. He refused to think any further.

They should be moving. How long had they been standing here for?

Five minutes? Maybe ten? Maybe even longer than that?

They had to go.

"Let's – "

Fuji was interrupted by a bullet which whizzed past his right ear and collided into the wreckage of the bus. Fuji and Marui immediately whipped their heads around and saw Himeka at a distance, standing on top of a rock which they had ran past earlier, two guns pointing at their direction.

They barely had any time to react when more bullets were fired at them.

They had to leave. There was no place for them to hide. Behind the wreckage was nothing but a wall of rocks.

Caught between a rock and a hard place…?

Not quite just yet.

They both quickly ran towards their left, back into the dense forest. If the bus had fallen down here, it meant that there was a road nearby, they might be able to get to a town.

They couldn't give up and welcome death just yet.

Even if they had the disadvantage.

Gunshots behind them and bullets whizzing past their face, arms and legs told them that Himeka was just right behind. They just kept running, hoping that the trees would give them some sort of protection from the bullets.

They kept at it for a while. Each step that they took felt like a thousand miles.

It was then that Marui fell with a yell.

Fuji turned and saw Marui clutching his shoulder. He glanced and saw that Himeka was gaining onto them. How such a petite girl was able to shorten the distance between them who had been running for training for days on end was beyond him. Marui scrambled back up to his feet and shouted at Fuji to keep running. A bullet scraped past Fuji's cheek, drawing blood, reminding him that he had no time to waste.

Fuji continued running, he could hear his heartbeats accelerating, footsteps pounding behind him informed him that Marui was following close behind.

Bullets showered upon them from behind. Fuji wished for it to rain; he was thirsty, but not for bullets to be fired at him like meteorites.

Run. Run. Run.

That was all Fuji could think about.

He didn't even notice that he had been shot in the side until he looked down at the ground to avoid tripping over branches and saw a huge patch of red on his Seigaku jersey. He couldn't feel the pain either.

The gunshots suddenly stopped and Fuji turned back. Marui was further away than he had thought. Fuji ran back, and noticed that the other boy was running with a limp, his face showed signs of extreme pain. Himeka was nowhere to be seen, but Fuji knew that she was there, in that forest, somewhere.

"Marui, are you okay?" Fuji asked, even though he knew that he was not.

Fuji then noticed that Marui was turning ghastly pale. He had more wounds that Fuji realized before and had lost quite a large amount of blood. Both of them had.

Without even waiting for a reply, Fuji lifted Marui's arm and slung it over his shoulder, supporting him, and continued to trek forwards as fast as they could.

The gunshots started again, but this time, from a different direction. Himeka had chosen to attack from a different angle.

Fuji screamed when a bullet shot right through his kneecap. His damaged knee gave way and both he and Marui tumbled down onto the ground.

"Fuji!" Marui exclaimed, and struggled to help the other boy up. Fuji bit his lip and blinked back tears.

"Let's go," he said, trying to stay strong.

Fuji set his eyes forwards, not looking down, not looking anywhere else. He had noticed it earlier when it was simply a tiny speck of light in the background. Now he was certain, in front of them was an exit from the forest.

There was just about five, six hundred metres to go.

The firing had stopped completely this time. It was as if the girl had given up. Or couldn't fire anymore.

If it were to be the second, then it would mean that Himeka had ran out of ammunition or…

Either way, they would be saved.

Both boys supported each other as they limped out of the forest, stepping out onto a paved road, one which made them nearly want to kiss it.

* * *

Himeka stood seething in the middle of the forest.

She had plenty of ammunition left.

"If I fire…I'll be alerting the townspeople." Himeka threw the guns onto the floor. "You've got away this time…"

* * *

It was a sight.

Two severely injured teenage boys stumbling down the streets of a small town with a population of less than two hundred people.

No one stopped to help. They simply stared at the bloodied strangers as if they were exhibits in a museum. Parents shooed their children away from the two, as if thinking that it would scar them should they see it.

_"Help us!"_ Fuji wanted to yell at them, but couldn't as he could only manage up to a whisper.

"What…are they doing?" Marui muttered upon seeing the actions of the townspeople.

It was then that shock turned into disapproving expressions on the townspeople's faces. They had probably thought that Fuji and Marui were gangsters getting brutally beaten up after a gang fight.

They decided to ignore them. The bystanders were not going to help them.

Fuji and Marui arrived at a building and stumbled through the automatic doors, collapsing onto the tiles of the police station.

Fuji heard footsteps running towards them and shouts of concern. He glanced at Marui with a relieved smile and noticed that the red head was unconscious.

What –

Fuji was certain that Marui was still conscious when they entered.

Using the remaining strength that he had, Fuji shook Marui's body. There wasn't any reaction.

"Hey you! Are you alright? What happened?" the stunned police officer started bombarding Fuji with questions.

Fuji opened his mouth to reply when he noticed faint black dots appearing in his vision. He also suddenly felt lightheaded and quickly changed the words that he was originally going to say.

"A…to…be," he croaked out in the end.

The officer was left with two severely wounded and unmoving teenagers lying on the floor of the police station.

* * *

**A/N: :)**


	18. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

"Breaking news! Brought to you by Tenipuri News. Late this afternoon at 4:20 pm, two teenage males were said to be stumbling through the town of Desalot severely wounded. They have been identified to be Fuji Syuusuke, aged fifteen, and Marui Bunta, aged fifteen. Both are now unconscious and have been sent to the hospital. Reporter James has more."

"I'm right now at Desalot police station. This is the place where the teenagers had ended up at."

"Man, I was shocked! They both entered all bloody and collapsed right there at the entrance," the police officer said.

"According to Officer Sein, one of the boys had mentioned a word, 'Atobe', before blacking out. After further research, experts have found that Fuji and Marui were from Seigaku Gakuen and Rikkaidai Fuzoku respectively, and were on a training camp with Hyoutei Gakuen, one of which being Atobe Keigo. Police have been led to a villa owned by the Atobe family and discovered it completely burnt to ashes, many casualties were suffered. Only five survived; Yukimura Seiichi, Yagyuu Hiroshi, Atobe Keigo and Shishido Ryou, all aged fifteen and a male identified as Taki Watano, aged eighteen."

"Taki Watano is to be arrested for mass murder and Taki Himeka, aged sixteen, is to be found, also to be arrested for murder. There was another culprit, however, has perished in the fire, Taki Kenta, aged eighteen. Please report to the police if you have seen this girl."

"Thank you James. We'll come back to it when we get more information. Coming up next – "

* * *

**25 years later**

"The Hyoutei regulars are going to be using the villa for a training camp with Seigaku and Rikkaidai."

Atobe looked up from his newspaper and glanced at his son.

"Very well."

His son left his room and Atobe picked up a photo frame sitting on the table. There was a photo of all the Hyoutei regulars during their middle school, just before the horrible incident. Atobe's phone started to ring and he picked it up.

"Hello?"

"Atobe, this is Yukimura speaking."

"What is it?"

"I'm assuming you've heard about the training camp?"

Atobe placed the photo frame back down and replied, "Yes."

"How's Shishido doing?"

"No improvements at all. I'm starting to wonder whether I should get a new psychologist."

"I see…ah! I have to go. I promised to visit Marui at the hospital."

"Mm, he just woken up a week ago didn't he? How's his condition?"

"Pretty good according to the doctor…but…you know." There was a pause. "Atobe, I'm really grateful to you for keeping Marui on life support for all these years."

"Mm…"

"Well, I'll talk to you again another day." Yukimura hung up.

Atobe sighed and placed the phone down.

Fuji was still in coma, Marui had woken up just a week ago but has a major gap in his life; he still thinks that he's fifteen years old and Shishido was suffering from the trauma. He, Yukimura and Yagyuu were living normal lives, but they all held a dark past. Nothing would ever be normal. Nothing would ever be the same.

Atobe rubbed his temples.

A training camp with Seigaku, Rikkaidai and Hyoutei…

Was history going to repeat itself?

* * *

**A/N: I apologise for my pathetic excuse of a news report. I've already attempted it once in a one-shot of mine and I obviously didn't learn anything from it. Sorry for being too lazy to do prior research as to how news reports are laid out.  
**

**Thank you all for sticking with me throughout the whole story! Really, thank you so much! Those who have reviewed, favourited or alerted, I love you so much!  
**


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